One year ago today, following a $508.13 payment, I posed that I’d eliminated $28000+ worth of credit card debt.
I even included a neat little graph to show how awesome my progress was.
That’s right — I said “awesome”.
In a four month span, I absolutely destroyed over $13k in debt. That was awesome.
(In reality, it was just a ton of momentum… Once I saw the debts falling, things started moving faster than I ever could have imagined…)
The good news is that my total credit card debt is still $0.
The bad news is that I don’t feel like I’ve progressed very much since then…
Sure, I paid off my auto loan in full (no car payments! woo-hoo!), I knocked nearly 10% of my mortgage balance out, I finally secured conventional homeowners insurance, and I somehow even managed to grow my savings account to 5-figures but for whatever reason, I dunno, I thought that once the credit cards were under control, I guess I thought I’d have, oh, say, a couple grand each month to spend on whatever I fancied.
It hasn’t worked out that way.
I wonder if that’ll kick in when I polish off the mortgage? Hmmmmm…
Either way, that’s still a long way off…
– – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Fun PIAC Financial Factoid: Sure, the past week has been pretty kind to everyone’s investments but even without the recent uptick in the markets, my investments have done better in 2009 than they did for the same time period in 2008. Crazy, huh?
From January 1 through March 22, my investments were down $1098.85 in 2008.
This year, not even including this week’s gains, from January 1 through March 22, they were only down $120.40.
Perhaps that says something about my personal investment strategy but I still think it’s clear that things aren’t nearly as bad as they might seem.
You continue to be an inspiration to me… and once I get my taxes back I will be another chunk ahead! You and snowballing – it’s what it’s all about!!!
And I’m further considering dropping out of my masters program too! (even tho I know it will get me somewhere… it will allow me to teach if nothing else…) But… it’s also getting me back in debt too!
Oh, and on facebook today some of my friends took the “what’s my smurf name” quiz… made me laugh and think of you! 🙂
Thanks Heather! 🙂
For the record, my smurf name on Facebook was not, strangely enough, Brainy.
It came out to be “King Smurf” — but if you’re *really* familiar with the Smurfs (I don’t assume that you are) or own the season 1 DVD set (I’d never assume that you do), you might remember that King Smurf actually was Brainy Smurf — just in a yellow outfit.
His whole rule was squashed when Papa Smurf returned to the village though…
Have I mentioned that I like the Smurfs? And that episode, in particular?
😉
[…] Plain and simple — the spending is a bit out of control right now but it’s not frivolous (for the most part) so it kind of makes me feel like we’re suddenly in a hole we may not be able to dig out of as fast as I’ve grown accustomed to. […]