Sunday, February 15, 2009

Debt Smackdown! Update

Time for an update on our debt reduction progress. It's been a month since I heralded our goal to pay $20,815 in debt.

We're a little over 1/8th of the way to achieving our goal. Extrapolating our progress into future months would put us smack dab into *debt free status by mid-September, 2009. Ever the optimist, I'm predicting we'll beat that handily.

By publishing this information I'm finding I think about being debt-free more than ever. Socrates was on to something when he said:
The unexamined life is not worth living.
Consequently, I've come to the conclusion that blogging changes behaviors. In my case, I'm grateful because I very much like the new and improved, financially astute Boomer.

Here's the detail of our progress from the original January post:


1)
$384
medical debt (orthodontist) Paid in full
2) $6,887 $4,676 credit card debt
3) $13,567 2nd mortgage on the SFR rental.

*debt free, that is, except for first mortgages
Photo by w00kie

5 comments:

debthelp76 said...

ah you seems on right track

Steve said...

That's fantastic! However, instead of saying "debt free" I'd opt instead of saying "BAD debt free". That is, eliminating debt that isn't working for you. In some respects, even CC debt can be looked upon as GOOD debt even though most see it as BAD debt. For example, if you used a CC to help pay for a property and that property is paying you back (and then some).

Boomer said...

@debthelp76: Hey, thank you for the encouragement!

@Steve: You have a point, Steve. My phrasing speaks more to my somewhat defensive state of mind lately. We are determined to get these debts paid off and build a hefty emergency fund. Then we'll be in a much stronger position to make GOOD debt work for us.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like you're putting a huge dent in that debt. Congratulations and can't wait to follow your progress. Are you cutting back on personal expenditures or making more money to pay off your debt quicker?

Boomer said...

@The Passive Dad: Thank you for your comment, PD. We've created a terrific budget, watch our expenditures like hawks and, when more $$ shows from my commissioned sales the extra goes on that debt faster than brownies on a dieter's thighs! Having extra $$ to throw at the debt is a bonus. Our budgeted income for the month is set at a comfortable baseline that I'm pretty sure I'll make every month

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