February 10, 2008
Progress Report - Month 1
Re: my cat, the grief is still there, but I'm feeling bette. We are looking into becoming a foster home for cats/kittens that need nurturing. Doing that in a way to guard my heart from what happened, not ready for the permanent replacement just yet. Also, I do have an idea of the cat I want next and until it shows up, this is a way to fill the hole in my heart and bring some kitten antics back into the house.
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Now onto my debt.
What I am going to do, from now till the final pay off date is, track my progress monthly. The graph on the right side of the site will change each month (hopefully downward motions only...lol). In the blog part, I'll break down where I was and where I am. Also in the far right column, I have a quick and dirty cheat sheet of debt. Ok, here is where I was 1/8/08:

Here is where I am as of today:

1. PayPal Buyers Credit. Last month $112.50. Today it is Paid in FULL!
2. Capital 1 Visa. Last month $468.92. Today it is Paid in FULL!
3. Orchard Bank MC. Last month $1,027.70. Today it is Paid in FULL!
4. Old Navy Card. Last month I owed $683.44. Now I owe $432.86.
5. Toyota Car Loan. Last month I owed $2,057.68. Now I owe $1805.40.
6. Target Visa. Last month I owed $2,470.1. Now I owe $2,126.78.
7. GA Taxes. Last month I owed $2,183.74. Now I owe $2,183.74.
8. Capital 1 Gold. Last month $2,910.32. Now I owe $2,625.43.
9. William & Fudge. Lasst month $3176.81. Now I owe $3,026.81.
10. Federal Taxes. Last month $6,934.03. Now I owe $6,934.03.
11. Direct Student Loan. Last month $7,776.56. Nw I owe $7,690.45.
12. Sallie Mae. Last month $24,050.68. Now I owe $23,897.83.
Grand totals: Last month I was $53,121.83 in debt. Now I am $50,723.33 in debt.
In the last 30 days I have paid down $2,398.50, resulting in me paying off 3 credit cards. Now for some fuzzy math, bear w/me, this is a convoluted story, try to stay awake ;)
Back in January, I got "pre approved" for up to 10k @ 8.99% w/free balance transfer. Let me back up a bit more. When I first added up my GA Taxes, I must have missed a year, b/c I was off a few hundred bucks, actually owing bit over 2k and not the $1500 or so I thought.
Ok, so I'm getting these offers and then I get the tax bill and then I get a "convenience check" from Capital 1 Gold.
(There is much more going on behind the scenes, including 3 phone calls to the GA IRS, finding out one of the years went into collection, DESPITE the freaking fact that I already paid it and now I have to call them tomorrow and figure out why this all happened.)
Anyway, anyway my thinking was this: use the CC check to pay the tax bill then do a Balance Transfer to the new card.
Well, I ended up getting approved for $600 bucks. Yup. Before I knew it, $500 went to Cap 1 Gold. @ first I was pissed, but believe it or not, this all worked out for the greater good.
Remember the miscalculation on my part? (2k not $1500?)
Well I wrote out the CC check for the $1500 and mailed it on the 14th, bill was due on the 15th. After my 2nd call to the GA IRS, realizing it was over a week and no check posting, I went online and paid each year w/the cc.
By doing a balance transfer of $500, I was able to free up much needed space and the next day I went ahead and paid it off (that Juniper card will ONLY be used for car related purchases such as gas and oil changes, minor things I can pay in full each month).
*Whew*
Long story short, my cap 1 gold now has my GA Tax bill on it.
Now the next part of the story is, I felt my "true" debt didn't reflect the actual picture so I made a minor change to the chart and how I'll log things.
Target Visa card is the card w/the Federal taxes on it. I went ahead and removed the taxes from both credit cards. Each month I will report the pay down amounts separately. It won't be an exact science. Until the credit card part of the debt is paid off, I'll just leave the tax debt as is. All payments will simply count towards the older debt. Of course I'm not factoring in interest. When the cc part of the debt is paid off, I'll count the final payments on the same card, as tax debt. If that makes any sense @ all.
So now what? According to my overall breakdown for this year, updates in bold.
With that amount, @ the very least I'll pay off all the smaller credit cards:PayPal Buyers Credit - (Paid in Full!)
Capital 1 Visa - (Paid in Full!)
Orchard Bank Card - (Paid in Full!)
Old Navy Card
Ga Taxes
Toyota Car Loan
Capital 1 Gold
and $1900.72 toward Williams and Fudge.
In the short term, that means over the for the next 10.5 months I need to pay off the Old Navy Card, Capital 1 Gold Target Visa*, Toyota Car Loan, GA Taxes and $1900 towards Williams and Fudge for a grand total of $8,448.78.
*since breaking out the tax debt from the cc's, the target visa balance was smaller than the cap 1 gold card.
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Last thing, as this is my first full week w/o job #3 and I'm almost caught up on missing sleep. I started to reread a few entries and realize I left a few things hanging. I PROMISE. Tomorrow I am going thru all entries since the year started and conclude the cliffhangers.
8:53 PM in Auto Loan, Capital One Gold, Capital One Visa, Credit Card Repayment, Credit Cards, Daily Jabber, GA Taxes, IRS, Juniper, Loan Repayment, Loans, Monthly Progress Report, Old Navy, Orchard Bank, PayPal Buyers Credit, Student Loans, Target, Taxes
Technorati Tags: credit+cards taxes debt paying+debt financial+goals debt+reduction bills
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