It’s already September…I can’t even believe it. We’re coming up on the expensive quarter of the year…uh oh.
Anyway, I’m back with another debt analysis. Again, this month isn’t too exciting but eventually we’ll get there 🙂
If you notice below on the second line for ‘CareCredit,’ my minimum monthly payment is almost $200. I’m eager to pay that specific card off because then I can start paying $200 toward my other cards or to save up. I saw a blog post about the third “debt pay-off strategy” which is paying off your debt with the highest minimum payment first. Why has no one else mentioned this?!? It’s a great strategy, and luckily my credit card with the highest minimum payment also has the highest interest rate so it works out perfectly.
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: 668
THE GOOD NEWS
I got a new job
This is a different job than the interview I had last month! I feel like I’ve been searching for years…I FINALLY got a new job and I’m so, so grateful. This is actually great news. I’m not sure what I would have done if I didn’t find a job any sooner. I’m getting paid what I asked for, and though it is not an increase from my previous job it’s not a decrease and I’ll also be working 36+ hours so I’ll be making more consistently anyway. I’m working 3, 12-hour shifts, but I can pick up a 4th shift if it is available to go into overtime. Obviously I’ll have 4 days off per week which gives me plenty of time to work on my blogs and YouTube channel, but I’ll also have a good bit of downtime while I’m on the clock so I can even work on this stuff there!
I basically got this job through a family friend who kindly highly recommended me for the position. It took some time but don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it.
I was able to stay on top of my bills
As you can see, my income for the month was very low because I was only working 1 or 2 days per week. Luckily I had some room on my credit cards to charge necessities (groceries, gas, etc.) and enough in my bank account to keep me afloat for a few weeks. I also sold some things around the house and got paid from Google Adsense.
THE BAD NEWS
My credit score went down…again
Last month my score was 675 and now it is 668. It’s going to drop a lot more than that during September for reasons I’ll have to go into more detail about at another time. I have never missed a payment in my life, however, my name is on someone else’s car soooo I’m sure you can put two and two together.
I’m in more debt than last month
Unfortunately, I had to charge a lot of things onto my credit cards and I was unable to pay rent again to my sister. I paid my first student loan payment totaling $288, but after interest it’s really only as if I paid $27 (*sigh*). By October, I’m hoping that I won’t need to use any credit cards and that I’ll start to pay my sister for rent each month.
I currently do not have any emergency savings
I got rid of my Digit account because they started charging $2.99 monthly and it just doesn’t make sense for me to pay that. I had about $250 saved, but because my income was so low I was forced to use it. Before I start putting extra money toward my debt, I would like to have at least $1,000 in my emergency savings.
My income may be increasing, but I’ve still got to find more ways to make extra money. I also need to do better with spending less on groceries, but besides that I haven’t been buying anything else.
If you have some holiday spending/saving suggestions I would love to hear about those!