get out of debt

The plan now is to keep it that way…

heck yeah!

how much it has added up, the little bit I have sent every time I get paid. Death by pinprick, sort of.

as well as little amounts every time I get paid. all makes a difference…is good to have a plan.

this should help.

As part of decluttering my life, I’ve been being very cautious about not bringing anything in the house. Hence, I’ve been finding that I get to my new paycheck with some of my money (after bills are paid, the stuff I keep to do whatever I want for during the two week pay period) leftover from the old paycheck. I decided today that when I get to payday and have stuff left, I’m going to divide it in thirds:

1/3 to debt (this is extra, we already make payments each month)
1/3 to savings
1/3 to cash for my upcoming trip to MT so I don’t have to make a large withdrawal

We always have so little debt, but then we pay it off and something comes up that puts us back in (just a little bit), but I still don’t like the feeling. Someday we’re going to need a bigger house, which means a bigger mortgage, and so we have to sock some cash away.

for a new heating system, and it was not an option to hold off (associating mandated it). We only have $500 left, but then a little more to tackle from that coming up. Still, I’m confident this can be gone by Christmas, especially with tax returns and the rebate check.

So I sold my car earlier this year, partly because I take public transit and we didn’t need two cars, and partly because the cash we got helped pay down debt (and jumpstart what I’m paying for school) that otherwise would have been a lot harder to take care of. just tonight, I was talking to my husband and we realized that we are doing awesome at the little bit we have left…just a few hundred left on one card, a few hundred for our furniture (interest free), and he has money in the bank to pay off our computers (which we’re holding onto right now, just in case we get a special assessment). We have stuff saved for my tuition, we have stuff saved for our car insurance, and we even have some sitting in savings were we to have a small emergency or a last minute trip somewhere.

BUT THEN! TODAY! BIKING HOME FROM WORK!!! I SAW AN ORANGE KIA SPECTRA WAGON!!!!!

I must explain…I drove a kia, and it was a great experience. That was the car I sold…but I’ve always wanted an orange car, since I was 16 years old, since before they were cool, it’s my favorite color (orange) but something you can’t really just have in everything…only certain things can be orange. Like a CAR!

And I had just said to my parents the other night, “when we go back to two cars, I want my orange car. I wish Kia had orange cars…I really liked my kia and would get another if I could get it in orange.”

AND THEN THERE WAS ONE!! JUST TO TORTURE ME!!!

So of course I’m online, checking the deals, and there are good financing deals, there really are. But I don’t need a car right now. If I wasn’t goign to school, I could definitely afford it, but it’s important to me not to have student debt, and I wouldn’t drive to work every day anyway, because I won’t pay that much for parking). Plus we only have one garage, and our other car is newer, so why get a new car that we leave outside?

Exactly. This is a dream for another season. Maybe in two years, when I finish my second undergraduate degree, i can treat myself (I’m considering getting loans for my graduate degree, since I could get federal loans….I can’t right now because this is my second undergrad degree, so I don’t qualify). That’s when I’ll likely need more mobility around town anyway).

So, I trust there will be more orange cars in the future. I trust that my bike and metro transit will be good to me the next few years. I do not need an orange Kia. i do not need debt, not when we’re so close to being totally completely unbelievably debt free.

So we’re down to $300 and a recent plane ticket, that’s it! We’re planning on paying that off next month. YAY!

We have a house and car payment, and my husband has a bit of business debt for some start up supplies, but really, we have less than $1k to obliterate what at one time was more. We have been good at using our tax refund and then a sold car for this, but I’ve been saving a bit to try and pay for school as I go instead of taking out a loan. while looking at buying a new house may force us to do the student loan, what I really car about is killing this last bit of CC debt. My favorite way is to sell random stuff on craig’s list and send all of that away…just this weekend we made $50 selling my old bike and some computer speakers, so I sent off a payment this evening. I know this could be done within the year, so that is my goal. Then, emergency savings, here we come.