I don't want to wish away the holidays and all the special moments that come from this time of year. However, from a debt perspective, I am SO ready for the New Year and a "clean slate" towards dumping debt! We started off 2015 incredibly strong, but ended quite weak. I know that's completely normal, but the guilt that I feel from it sucks. With that said here's where we will be starting off the year and our goals to go with it
7 credit cards, 2 furniture/appliance loans, 1 personal loan, 10 medical bills, 1 car loan, 7 student loans, 1 DVC loan, 1 private school loan, 1 collection, an empty emergency fund, and IOUs on both of our kid's savings accounts (ages 2 and 4). All of these reach a grand total of $90,887.13
The collection irks me beyond belief. It's from Comcast who claims we never returned our cable boxes (which we did) or our internet modem (which wasn't theirs, we bought it from Best Buy!). I have no proof of returning the cable boxes, but I do still have the receipt for the internet modem. So, I guess I'm going to have to go to war with them. It's $684.39, so not a small fee to pay and just move on.
The IOUs on our kid's savings account isn't from taking money from the accounts per se. When they were born we started depositing a set amount of money into an account for them each payday. In order to put more towards our debt payments we have suspended those payments, but I've been logging how much we owe them in "backpay" once we get back on our feet.
Out of the 7 credit cards, 4 of them are currently on no interest plans, the other 3 are on very high interest rates.
The rest of the items are pretty cut and dry. They are what they are.
Our main 2016 goals:
1. Replenish emergency fund $1,000.00
2. Eliminate all credit card balances. Once they are paid off we will utilize our rewards cards doing the charge/pay off method. $6,822.38
3. Pay off both furniture/appliance loans. One is on a no interest plan until June 2016, the other one has been acquiring interest all along. $2,719.93
4. Pay off personal loan. $750.00
5. Figure out ways to increase our snowball to make this all feasible.
Things won't occur necessarily in that order to ensure that we pay off no interest plans before they expire etc.
Best of luck to everyone for an amazing 2016!!!