As I mentioned previously I will only be doing the updates when things change financially. Since I get paid every two weeks it is easier to just do the updates the week after I get paid.

We did have a bit of good news as State Farm reduced our monthly payment by issuing us a dividend to offset the cost. This was a bit over a hundred dollars and allowed us to put the difference towards our credit card balance.

We now have paid off all of the higher interest debt!

The last payment was made today on my wife’s credit card that was carrying a $3600 balance just over a month ago. We paid the last $1000 today and it was a great feeling.

We still have a little ways to go and that will take some time but at least we are not paying a lot in interest anymore. The next debt we decided to tackle is the furniture purchase.

Currently our financial situation is:

Credit Card 15: Paid Off!!!
Automobile Loan: $23,859 1.9% – Paid monthly payment
Installment Loan: $2439 0% – no change
Credit Card: $10,339 0% – no change
Medical Bill $479 0%

My plan is to have the installment loan paid off by the beginning of August with an additional payment on my car loan and then I will begin to tackle my last debt. I will also pay my last payment to the medical bill and get rid of that debt this month.

We have managed to pay off a majority of our debt since the beginning of this year and will hopefully continue this trend.

There were some additional changes that may impact our schedule but these are ultimately improvements. My wife is now back to work full-time. She was losing about eight hours a week and this will now be added back into the budget. However she is also commuting a bit more and we will have to account for the increase in gas.

We also will have to add a bit back into our budget for food as she will be eating lunch at work. This will not be a big increase since neither of us really eat out during lunch but it will increase the grocery bill by a small amount.

Another change we made, we added an additional one percent to my 457 plan and made plans to add three percent to a 457 plan that my wife’s employer offers.

My change went into effect immediately. Her change will be with the September paycheck. If you have been reading my other posts, the general idea is to pay off all the high interest debts and then increase your retirement.

I will gradual increase this amount as I decrease the rest of my debts. I do want to have a good portion of my car paid off before I really start adding a lot more to our retirement.

This past month we spent more with my daughter’s birthday and a planned vacation. We also had to pay off the credit card bill for the patio furniture but our overall spending was still down.

The planned vacation was more of us just disconnecting and taking a day trip to Rocky Mountain National Park. This is a reminder that you need time to recharge especially with all the unrest and uncertainty in the world right now.

Spending some money to refocus your life is worth it in the long run and can lead to a lot more productivity. I managed to stay off of the computer most of the weekend and got caught up on a class that I am taking.

Total debt paid off since March: $20,018.61
Additional Debts paid off: $10,474.51 – Since 2019

Total Debt paid: $30,493.15

Total net worth is closer to $40k now, not much of a change from last month but still much better than last year. I was able to add an additional $800 to savings but that is to offset the cost of my tax payment in the middle of this month.

I do plan on putting my tax payment on my credit card to get the points and then paying it off in August again.