The warm weather is HEREEEE!!
I’m happy to say that I am really enjoying life right now. Therefore, I am going to appreciate and soak in all of it’s greatness while it’s here.
Whoever says “Money can’t buy happiness,” must have never been broke and/or living paycheck to paycheck. I KNOW that money in itself cannot buy happiness. And I know that you can still be happy while “poor.” I know it’s all a mindset and it’s obviously not what life is about. However, living paycheck to paycheck or worse, going into further debt each month is STRESSFUL.
I am grateful to say that I am no longer in that situation as of April. I have found a great job with great income, and I can dig my way out of debt probably 2x as fast now.
In April I did actually INCREASE my debt which I’ll explain under the bad news, but that won’t be the case any longer.
In May my goal is to throw an extra $250 toward my debt plus any extra income. I want to increase that number each of course which will happen once I’ve been at my jobs a couple months and as I get credit cards down to $0!
Also, I now have a budget! I’m thinking I may start adding it in to each month’s analysis…we’ll see!
One more side note: I FINALLY started reading Rich Dad Poor Dad which has been really good so far! It’s hard for me to put down!
Anyway, here’s my debt analysis for April:
DEBT PAYMENT/INCOME SPREADSHEET
*This spreadsheet does not include payments for my car (a lease) or my insurance (life, health, vision, dental)*
CURRENT FICO SCORE: 665
THE GOOD NEWS
My credit score went up one point
Every point counts! I’m not expecting my credit to go up much more over the next 2 months or so. My credit card use is still in the yellow range (about 42% of my limit), and I need 29% to get to green. According to credit karmas credit calculator, if I pay off $500 of debt my score will go up about 20 points! I’m not exactly sure how it’ll work but either way I know I’ll be back in the 700s by July.
I got paid for 28 hours of overtime from my previous job
Before I left my previous job I worked a ton of OT. Which sucked at the time but the pay check was nice!
I also got paid sooner than I thought from my new job
At my new job I only get paid once a month. I started the last week of April so I assumed I wouldn’t get paid for it until the end of May. However, I ended up getting paid a prorated rate which helps a ton!
THE BAD NEWS
My debt increased
I charged on my credit card a lot more than I should have but I’m not worried about it. Some things I charged: an oil change and new windshield wipers, a 90 minute massage, supplements, groceries, gas, an Amazon order. Oops! Well to be honest, I was charging more on my card because I was afraid I wouldn’t have enough to last me a whole month (because I thought I would have to wait until May 31st like I said before).
Consolidating my student loans was a fail
I’ve always been denied a new loan to consolidate my student loan debt because of low income. This time I was denied because of my credit/delinquencies (the delinquencies on my account ARE NOT from me) so I needed a co-signer…through SoFi anyway. My dad agreed to co-sign but they wanted to do a hard pull on his credit before even giving us a rate so I said F@#& it. I got approved through Earnest on my own, but the interest was over 5%.
I definitely want to lower my interest rate and combine all 11 loans but I’m not worried/stressed about it. I’m just gonna focus on throwing more toward my consumerism debt and I should be able to knock off my student loans quite quickly after that!
That about sums it up!
Becoming debt free is definitely a roller coaster, but not stressing over numbers or worrying about it has been key for me. There’s gonna be ups and downs just like anything in life, but it’ll get paid off either way!