Budget Update - April

So here we are.  Another month of eliminating debt and 3 months down on our journey to being mostly debt free by the end of 2015.

April had ups and downs with our budget.  We had some really exciting highs and some really low lows and some highs that turned into lows and lows that turned into highs :)  Does that make sense?

Let's start from the beginning.

We sold my car.  Yes!  That was a huge pay off of $5698.34!!!  Now as exciting as that was, I can't be without a car, so we bought a new vehicle for me.  Yes, that means that we are now in more debt, but my car had a lot of miles on it, no warranty of any kind and was going to most likely need expensive maintenance in the upcoming future.  So we thought it best to get me a newer car, higher off the ground, still family friendly and something with a warranty so that we don't have to stress about car repairs and that monetary side of things.  This was a high, mixed with a little low, but we are super happy!

Next, we paid off Ryan's medical bill that he acquired after a food poisoning incident back in November.  We have great medical insurance, but ER visits can be pricey and this one was.  We have been paying monthly on it, but this month we were finally able to pay it off completely!  Another $132.50 paid off!

Lastly, we paid off our couch!  Last May when we bought our house our previous couch didn't match at all with the wall colors.  And since we were eager and excited we ran out the next weekend and bought a brand new couch!  The first time either of us had ever bought a big piece of furniture brand new!  We did get an interest free loan for a year and this month we were getting close to the end and decided to pay it off!  That was another $271.09 gone from our debt!

We also had re-financed our house back in March and had our first new lower mortgage payment due this month and those extra $200 this month saved was awesome!

I went ahead and opened up another savings and another checking account this month also.  We now have an emergency savings account with $1000 in it, a checking account for our monthly bills, a checking account for our mortgage, a checking account for spending and a savings account that we are working on building up a nice safety net.  We were actually able to put a nice amount of money into savings this month as well and we are working towards getting 3 months worth of expenses put away for a rainy day, or for the next maternity leave stint :)

Overall for the month of April we paid off a total debt amount of $8672.93!  We got rid of $450.00 in monthly payments we were making meaning that we were using our credit card a whole lot less this month to get by.  

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And now, since we completed 3 months of debt elimination I decided that I would do a bigger recap of what we have accomplished so far.

We started out with about $50,000 debt back in February.  I had this awesome spreadsheet with 22 tabs for every single bill we had each month.  We had credit payments going to 12 different vendors/companies and we were not rolling in the dough.  Things were out of hand!

I gathered a plan for us, we talked it out, agreed on a plan and away we went with kicking our debt down little by little.  And this is what happened:

In February, the month we started this journey, we paid off $5108.

In March we paid off $2829.

And now in April we paid off $8672.93.

After 3 months of really focusing on eliminating our debt, without jeopardizing our nice life too much, we paid off $16,609.93!!!!!!  That is about 33% of our total debt in 3 months!  We got down to 7 vendors/companies and 15 tabs on my spreadsheet!  That means that at this rate we could have this $50,000 paid off in 9-10 months!  That would put us really close to our goal!

And honestly, as I am typing that out I am getting more excited!  I am getting more motivated to make that happen.  I see a spot where that could actually be possible!  :)

I am really proud of us and am excited that our plans are working.  The highs and the lows come and go, but in the end we are working on it as a team and that is making it so much easier!