I'm back to obsessing about my debt (I took a break to countdown to vacay.) Anyway, in addition to trying to figure out how much money I can send to my higher interest card this month, I also tried to plan for the upcoming increase minimum payment for my Chase card. I'm really trying to keep my entire budget so that I can pay for everything just from my paycheck. The money I get from my roommates, ideally, all goes to additional payments to my higher interest card or other random crap that comes up. In order to make my budget work with the increased Chase payment I have to reduce the payment to my higher interest card by $225. This works, because it's still more than the minimum payment but it still sucks.
So I got the whole Chase thing worked out but that got me thinking about how it was going to affect my higher interest card payments. I've also been wanting to figure out the "master payback plan." Basically, when in the hell am I going to dump this credit card debt? Using a snowball payment calculator and some (hopefully) reasonable guesses, it looks like I can pay off my higher interest card by Mar 2010 and the other card by Sep 2010. I did a different version of the calculations and had the first card paid off by the end of the year but the final date of Sep. 2010 was the same. So basically it looks like I will be done with first card somewhere between Dec 2009 and Mar 2010. That's good news. The bad news is, the Sep 2010 date assumes I can manage to consistently come up with $1100 each month to put towards credit card payments. That could be hard since it doesn't take into account gifts, repairs, vacations (gasp) or anything that life is notorious at throwing at us. I have an emergency fund for the big stuff but I'm concerned about the little, random stuff.
I printed off the repayment schedule to use as motivation. It's going to be hard to not slack off on occasion and send it less than $1100 but damn, I'd REALLY like to get the first card paid off by the end of the year. That would be a real victory and a great way to start the new year.
So, back to the title of this post. Crap! $1100 a month and I'm sending it away to friggin credit card companies. It's frustrating to think of all the things I could be doing with $1100 a month.
September 2010...that would be nice...that would be very nice. Maybe October 2010 I'll take my $1100 and go diving.
So I got the whole Chase thing worked out but that got me thinking about how it was going to affect my higher interest card payments. I've also been wanting to figure out the "master payback plan." Basically, when in the hell am I going to dump this credit card debt? Using a snowball payment calculator and some (hopefully) reasonable guesses, it looks like I can pay off my higher interest card by Mar 2010 and the other card by Sep 2010. I did a different version of the calculations and had the first card paid off by the end of the year but the final date of Sep. 2010 was the same. So basically it looks like I will be done with first card somewhere between Dec 2009 and Mar 2010. That's good news. The bad news is, the Sep 2010 date assumes I can manage to consistently come up with $1100 each month to put towards credit card payments. That could be hard since it doesn't take into account gifts, repairs, vacations (gasp) or anything that life is notorious at throwing at us. I have an emergency fund for the big stuff but I'm concerned about the little, random stuff.
I printed off the repayment schedule to use as motivation. It's going to be hard to not slack off on occasion and send it less than $1100 but damn, I'd REALLY like to get the first card paid off by the end of the year. That would be a real victory and a great way to start the new year.
So, back to the title of this post. Crap! $1100 a month and I'm sending it away to friggin credit card companies. It's frustrating to think of all the things I could be doing with $1100 a month.
September 2010...that would be nice...that would be very nice. Maybe October 2010 I'll take my $1100 and go diving.
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