Why does it seem impossible to get out of debt!??!
I have $20K+ in credit card debt and plan to 'snowball' it down in 2018. I've paid off some low balance cards already and have a few more to go. A good chunk of the debt is from when I was not working and had to basically live off the cards
How do you keep your positivity while paying off debt whennyou feel.like you're buried in it?
And I definitely don't want to go through one if those debt management companies. They totally ruin ypur credit score until all cards are paid in full and, even after that, your score won't go back up for at least 7-12 months or longer
You can do this! Knowledge is power.
Don't use a debt management company. That is for people who are truly lost with no direction.
What worked for me (and still does 95% of the time) is to create The Plan. When it's all mapped out on paper,(well on the computer) it's easy to see where you've been and where you're heading. I found that seeing where I'll be in a month if I stay on track was very encouraging so every now and then I peek ahead. Yes, it's very slow in the beginning. My lowest bill that I started my snowball with was only around $200-250 with a $25/mo payment for our lawnmower from Sears. So even moving on to debt #2 it really wasn't much faster. I think I was just so excited to have a very black & white, methodical approach finally. Before finding this thread and DR, I was just throwing extra money at various bills and getting no where. As DR says, look at whether you have an income problem or a spending problem. Spending problems are easier to handle imo. The emergency fund was also reassuring that I wouldn't easily break down and overspend on BS otherwise I'd have to dip into my EF.
Every paycheck has a very specific list of bills that gets paid with it. This includes non-monthly bills such as sewer & car insurance.
Dh and I each get paid every other week but opposite weeks. So every week has a check coming in. I don't know a thing about spreadsheets and maybe I should learn but I keep a Word document listing each paycheck and the list of bills that goes with each check.
Each week is color coded: purple, orange, green blue. (Those few bonus months with 3 checks gets a red-coded check in the middle of the month. That's the bonus one.) Once a debt is paid off, it still gets listed under that paycheck but I change it to bold & larger font and those get added up separately, which determines my snowball payment that week. Then continue paying the rest of the bills on the list as usual.
So even though my Sears bill ($25) and
Amazon card ($75) were paid off, on the purple week I would still pretend like I was paying those bills except that $100 would go to the current bill.
As time goes on, the big bolded list of paid off debts keeps getting longer (bigger snowball) for each check and the bills that are truly due keep getting shorter.
This is where it starts getting exciting again because with big snowballs come big payments each week. We went from having not a penny leftover every week to having some weeks with an $800 snowball payment. So by the time you get to the larger bills, you are taking much bigger bites out it.
I also keep a separate snowball document, listing each debt, then beneath it each weekly check, still color coded and all the little snowballs I used to pay and their total for the week and subtract that from the debt I'm attacking. I currently have it listed through next summer.
I can visualize each paycheck and how each week the balance due keeps shrinking and I see the exact date it will be gone. (give or take a few) Then list the next debt and so on.
I don't delete them from my past because the longer the old 'paid off list' gets, the more encouraging I find it. Nice to be able to scroll through a long list of bills that are gone to get to this week's snowball. My 2014 snowballs were so small! I don't ever want to lose sight of where I've been and how long it took to get to where we're at.
So as of now our credit cards are all paid off. Car payments done. $15k Parent Plus loan done. We did still take small vacations in with that but it was with the knowledge that I'm funneling my snowball away from debt payment which will only make it take longer.
With each break for a trip though I came right back on it, more focused than ever.
All we have left now is a home equity loan which we will attack again after a little break to travel. I still follow The Plan but instead of listing a debt, I list my savings goal, such as "Airfare: $3000", and list all my little weekly snowballs below that then list "Christmas $5000" and all my little snowballs below that til it's paid off. Then list the next thing. Whatever you want it to be. My current goal is $10k for vacation next fall. I have 6470 to go which should be done by March 15. Next up: $8k for a car down payment which will take until July 5. Current car will be 12 by then which is enough for me. Next we attack the home equity loan.
Of course this is all fluid and not carved in stone.
Being able to see all of this at a glance helps me tremendously. Ok I guess I'm a little obsessed but if it keeps me from getting back in over my head, so be it.
There were shaky times in the beginning where I'd have to funnel my snowball for a few weeks to pay car ins or ds20's senior trip to WDW or some other lack of planning. This still happens but not so often. I can do it without getting too sidetracked.
If there is even $5 left in checking (beside a cushion) before payday, it goes toward whatever bill/goal I'm snowballing. I just follow my own rules I set for myself. When I get knocked down due to things beyond our control, I get back up again, brush myself off, and continue on.
The hardest part is dedicating the time toward creating The Plan. Now I can just copy & paste to add on future months.
What helps us a lot I think, is that dh doesn't mind cooking every night, even after a long stressful day.
Sorry to ramble on so much but I feel like my way was so easy for me to simply substitute one bill for another and it just breaks my heart when people start getting lost with no road map.
Hang in there!
It can be done. So many of us here are living proof! If you need more you can google success stories and hear from others what worked for them. Lots of encouraging DR videos on youtube.
Good luck to you!!
Our insurance went up about the same amount as yours.
