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Cr. card: $2,808.05
Personal Loan: $20,683.45
Car Loan: $11,711.78
Overall: $35,203.28
20.17% done now!

Slightly better than my estimate. I look forward to updating this next month—we’ll be below the $35,000 mark. Yay!! I envision 2010 being a year of major improvement in this area.

Cr. card: $2,818.65 (estimated)
Personal Loan: $20,369.19 (estimated)
Car Loan: $12,130.63 <- payment hasn’t posted yet :(
Overall: $35,318.47
19.91% done now!

Will update next week with actual amounts, and car payment will have posted by then.

So, I’ve decided I’m not going to be a Debbie Downer about this even though I could. I’m choosing to have a positive, pro-active attitude. And, I’m changing my ways a bit in the interest of Christmas—my favorite holiday, and the most important (in my opinion) of the year. I am NOT going to short-change Christmas just because our finances are not what they should be. I am gulp entertaining the idea of using a credit card (one without a current balance) JUST for Christmas stuff, and then paying on it aggressively.

That said, I also set the wheels in motion to refinance our personal loan (the largest chunk of our consumer debt) with our Credit Union. I am just waiting on a couple answers and then I will go to a brief appointment and that will be very helpful. Then, I have this stupid student loan situation to sort out… hubby consolidated and now his old loan institution keeps sending us bills saying we owe $1400+ dollars NOW. The place that took over his loan say to ignore those—sounds suspicious to me.

But, on a positive note, I’ve decided to do SOMETHING no matter how big or small, every day toward a better financial situation, so I expect to make a lot more posts for this goal. Today, I am working on making the appointment to refi the personal loan, and I will print some sort of monthly checklist or something for every bill we pay.

Always working on lowering these. We’ll get there…

Cr. card: $2,888.05
Personal Loan: $20,529.38
Car Loan: $12,130.63

Overall: $35,548.06 (out of the $36,000’s! yay!)

19.39% done now!

I will update this yet again soon as my car payment hasn’t posted yet, but here it is as of this moment:

Cr card: $2,888.05
Personal loan: $20,529.38
Car loan: $12,656.13

Overall: $36,073.56

I’m 18.2% done with this one. More to come soon…

Paid a car payment, so I’ll post a new payoff when I have it. I also need to post updates on the other two loans- perhaps tomorrow or Friday.

BUT, I had to have the credit union resubmit a pre-approval worksheet for our mortgage refi, so that hasn’t gone forward just yet.

I also have a bit of homework to do and then I can refinance our car loan and our personal loan with our credit union, and reduce the payments and interest, as well as keep our business local. I can even arrange for automatic payroll deductions if I want.

Baby steps, but we’re getting smarter. Eventually, this will not be an issue. I will be delighted when we can pay our bills and have enough left that we don’t have to question a purchase as tiny as $10!

For tomorrow after work—we’ll go over our credit report and then get the ball rolling on our mortgage refinance!! I am excited because we might be able to roll another item into it and still come out with a smaller payment than we’re making now.

We’re taking a different approach, too, and will be putting more into savings and trying to forget it’s there. We’ll let that build up as much as possible so we have a nest egg.

Since I just paid on credit card, new total is: $3037.08 for that.

New overall total: $36522.82

17.18% done with this

New totals:
Credit Card: $3054 **(Includes LOB charges we’ll get back eventually. Sigh…)
Car Loan: $12,538.36
Personal Loan: $20,947.38
Overall Total: $36,539.74
This goal is: 17.14% done

I made a car payment today. So, in a few days I can check the payoff balance and see if it is lowered yet.

We also need to get a deposit slip filled out so we can put what our tenant gave us in the bank finally.

I really need to get organized once and for all. I think that will help a lot! And, we still need to look into refinancing our mortgage.