pay off my credit cards

The fun thing about actually making progress paying off a credit card is that the lower the balance gets, the more of a dent each payment makes. This month’s payment will put me below $4K on the one card, which I can hardly believe. I don’t remember when the balance was that low. Yes, I realize how crazy it sounds to think $4 is low, but considering I was starting at $8K, I’m pretty mtherf_ing proud of that.

Last year I called my Visa people and whined to them that I didn’t think I’d ever pay my card off. They had been raising my rate for a while because I had over a certain balance but continued to use the card…never mind that I was paying on time. Anyway. So I got them to put me in a payoff program. They slashed my interest rate, and for the last year and a half I have paid off more than $2000 of it. By Xmas I will be under $5K for the first time in YEARS.

I have one other credit card with a little still on it, but I expect to have that one paid off by this time next year, if not sooner.

This is something I knew I had to get serious about because soon I will have to start paying more on my student loans each month in order to ever pay them down. Right now I’m barely making a dent. And I’ll probably be looking at a new car payment in the next couple of years, so there’s that too. Man, I wish the Asskicking Fairy had come to visit me when I got that first preapproved card in the mail. I know what she would have said: “If you open that envelope, you will still be paying for it when you’re 30.”