Tell All Tuesday - Building the Payoff Fund
This week I started rebuilding the student loan payoff fund, which I emptied out last week to make the first significant overpayment on the student loan. I am happy to report that the overpayment did go directly to principal as indicated, and the spouse’s student loan is in danger of being a four figure debt versus a five figure debt very soon. With that, let’s look at this week’s numbers:
- Debt at start of blog (6/19/07) : $36,451.71
- Current total as of 03/18/08: $24,846.25
- Principal paid to date $11,388.48
- Broken down into:
- Student loan: $11,550.22
- Spouse student loan: $10,596.32
- Car loan: $2699.71 (made $228.32 min payment)
- Student loan payoff fund balance: $116.00
- % debt paid off (NCN Network Chart) : 31.84 (last week 31.24)
I’ve started a new category for these tell all posts with the balance of the payoff fund. Once the balance goes over $500, or when I make a monthly budgeted minimum payment of $437.59, I will take the money out of the payoff account and pay it to the student loan as well. Until then, it builds up as a backup emergency fund of sorts. I received $116 in survey payouts, survey referrals, and blog revenue in the past week which was put into the payoff account.
The only other payments I made this past week was the minimum payment to the auto loan of $228.32, dropping that balance down to $2699.71. The nice thing about that debt (if you can say anything nice about debt) is because the interest rate is so low (4%) most of my payment every month goes directly to principal. That should be paid off next March with the minimum payments alone.
I’ve been tutoring and taking some surveys and working on the blogs and also developing another income stream that I’ll discuss next week when everything is finalized, and hopefully we will continue to be able to take big chunks out of our debt! I don’t know if anything new will happen between this week and next week but there always seems to be something popping up, the more random plans I make the more results appear. 
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March 19th, 2008 at 9:25 am
I love reading your Tell All Tuesdays. I am inspired and encouraged by your action to reduce your debt. You are so focused and do such a good job of staying on track.I can’t seem to get on an even field. There is always that extra prescription that my 19 year old needs (our insurance doesn’t cover), the 10 year old dog who needs more vet care now, and right now expenses for the 19 year old’s trip to study abroad this summer. (most of it is paid through a scholarship and college fund, but there are still incidentals.) But, I keep plodding along, saving when I can and putting small extra snowflakes when I can into my debt, beyond the minimum payments.