pay off my credit cards

Down to $4500…

Sooooo… moving to Chicago for school was expensive. So is living in Chicago. I’m at about $5600 in credit card debt, which is still better than when I started, but I’m feeling a little discouraged because I finally am facing this reality—I’ve been kind of ignoring it a bit for the past few months.

However, I am giving myself credit for taking a hard look at my finances to see where I can cut costs. I’m calling the companies now to see if they’ll lower the APRs, and I’ll rearrange the debt to cards with 0% intro rates if they won’t.

I’ve also done a lot to cut costs already: a roommate moves in tomorrow (saving ~$450/mo in rent), I sold my car (relieving myself of a $5400 loan, as well as a $200/mo payment and about $100/mo in insurance). My electric bill is the only utility I have, and it’s ~$20/month. My cell phone plan is only for 400 minutes; I’m nervous to make it any lower, and incur crazy fees for going over my limit.

So that leaves saving money on food and NOT eating out or eBaying or whatever. I’m trying to make this year a year of health in many regards, including overall financial health. Here goes!

I’ve paid off one card; two left. There’s a total of about $6k to go. I’m using the one I paid of for small things (things automatically charged monthly, like my Netflix subscription), but I pay it off monthly. I hope to have the other two paid off by the end of July. I’m hanging on to one that I don’t use, simply because I want to use its very low interest rate as leverage for lowering the interest rates on the other two cards. I hope to have everything paid off by the end of July!