become debt free

Just when I have the numbers all figured out, we now have to start paying back my wife’s student loans. Ouch! That’s another $350 a month that was allocated elsewhere.

We just found out that the USPS hadn’t delivered and/or lost our mail about a month ago. There were ~$400 of unpaid bills heretofore we thought had been paid. Ouch. This will hurt our cash flow a bit.

I packed my lunch every day last week and every day this week so far. Since I normally went out to eat twice a week, that’s about $15 I’ve saved already. If I can keep it up, the total will be ($5 * 2 * 52) = $520 a year!

Per the “31 days to fix your finances” series on The Simple Dollar – http://www.thesimpledollar.com, I went through the list of my expenses and found some reasonable ways to reduce.

- I switched satellite packages from the “Platinum” to the “Silver”. Three-fourths of the channels we watch were still available (total yearly savings: $264)

- I switched my cell phone plan to be part of a family plan with my wife and her parents (total yearly savings: $468)

With just those two things, I have an additional $61 a month I can put towards some of our debt. It’s not a lot, but every little bit helps.

I want to evaluate our “Eating Out” category next, as it’s rather steep ($191 per month), but we like to experiment with local restaurants often. That one will be a challenge.

I’m fortunate enough to not have any credit card debt, however, my wife and I both have large school loans, a sizable mortgage and car loan, and some other random loans. It would be very nice to pay these off as quickly as possible so we can contribute more to a college fund, retirement fund, and motorcycle fund (sssh….she doesnt know about that one yet!)