Happy April!
I AM DOWN ALMOST $10,000 IN DEBT FROM FEBRUARY 2019!
Now before anyone gets too excited, I have an explanation.
As you know, I moved out on my own and my sister sold our house. We bought the house in 2013, it was a foreclosed home and house prices were lower overall.
Well, fast forward to 2019 and our house gained over $70,000 in equity. To be clear, my name was NOT on the loan. However, I did put a down payment on the house and I had been paying for it monthly.
Throughout 2017 I went several months without paying anything for the house. I had a lot of debt and simply couldn’t afford to. Luckily my sister was kind enough to trust me that I would eventually pay it back to her.
That IOU eventually came out to about $6,750. Plus I wanted to give her an extra $1000 to make up for it.
Well, since we sold the house and I put almost $20K into it, she dropped the money I owed her AND is giving me several thousand dollars. It all works out and I’m very grateful for it.
That it why my debt dropped by almost $10K, most of it was what I owed her, and then I paid off my last credit card.
Oh and that’s another thing, I’M NOW CREDIT CARD DEBT FREE!!
I’ll still be using my credit cards for fixed expenses though (gas, dental bills, a flight, etc.), only to maintain my credit score and to take advantage of the points/miles.
Anyway, let’s get into the good stuff!
From now on I’ll be including my Roth IRA value as well! Once I pay off all my debt, I would like to start sharing my positive net worth too! 🙂
DEBT PAYMENT/INCOME SPREADSHEET
Current FICO Score: 725
Current Debt: $63,953.65
Roth IRA Value: $1,595.64
THE GOOD NEWS
I am credit card debt free
I’m pretty excited that all of my high interest credit cards are paid off! I honestly don’t feel much different. I was happy that I paid them off but I feel overwhelmed about how much I still have to go.
I set up automatic Roth IRA investments
I know some people (Mr. Ramsey) don’t believe you should invest while in debt, but I don’t want to waste all this precious time. I have set up automatics payments of $100 to my Roth IRA each month. While it’s not even close to maxing it out each year, it’s still something and it will help in the long run!
March generated over $400 in Mediavine Ad revenue
My page views dipped pretty significantly this month, but I’m just so grateful that I’m making any amount of money consistently from my blog anyway. It’s awesome and I can’t wait to use some of it for paying off more debt!!
THE BAD NEWS
I filed my taxes incorrectly
My full-time income is not taxed. I have to pay my taxes manually every quarter. Well I ended up not reporting my income correctly back in February so I messed everything up. It’s probably going to end up costing me a few hundred in fees. Plus, I’ll have to file an amended tax return and I’ll be going to my tax guy for help, which is going to cost more. Bummer.
At first I was really stressed about it, but it’s not in my control at this moment. I messed up, it’s not the end of the world.
Refinancing my student loans is still a bad option for me
Awhile back I tried to refinance my student loans. I was rejected twice. I tried to co-sign with my dad, but they wouldn’t give me a interest rate without hitting his credit, so I said forget it. This time I tried, and the lowest interest rate I was offered by SoFi was 6.9%. Which is higher than all of my student loan interest rates!! That wouldn’t help me at all.
Another site offered a 5.8% interest rate with a minimum monthly payment of over $900!! HA no thanks. Maybe in a couple of years I’ll try again.
SPENDING
Savings/Sinking Funds: ($180+) I’m not including this in my “spending” total because it’s not actually spending. $180 went to my sinking funds which I’m SO GLAD I’m doing (I use Qapital for sinking funds), and BOA automatically transfers some of my money to my savings for me but I didn’t bother adding it up. I didn’t transfer my usual $1300 to my Marcus account because I will be paying my quarterly taxes the first week of April.
Investing: ($100) Like I said, I set up $100 to auto invest into my Roth IRA each month.
Donate: ($50) Every month I want to donate at least $50. This month I donated to an older blind doggy named Wonder Boy!
Rent: ($1,316) The cost of my one bedroom one bath apartment near Atlanta, GA!
Renter’s insurance: ($16.66) I am required to have renter’s insurance for my apartment.
Trash: ($35) Valet trash is mandatory at my apartment. Dumb, I know.
Wi-fi: ($65) I have Google Fiber. It is $50 a month and then the additional $15 is from the half of February that I had it set up.
Electricity: ($74.37) This includes a $30 service fee (one time fee). The rest is my electricity bill for the month which isn’t too bad!
Water: ($0) I will pay my first water/sewage bill on April 1st.
Food: ($368.83) OK I give up, should I bump my food budget to $400/month?!?! I might as well.
Gas: ($56.21) I got gas twice this month and the price increased a ton over the last couple weeks! I was hoping this would be a bit lower but it’s OK.
Health: ($32.40) This is the price of my Ritual multivitamins.
Car: ($340.73) My minimum payment for my 2015 Toyota Camry is $315.73. I also paid $25 for an emission test. However, since I have a sinking fund for my car maintenance I transferred $25 back to checking account.
Student Loan Debt: I pay $288.37 every month.
Credit Card Debt: ($1,631.90) BYE BYE credit card debt.
Insurance: ($147.15) This includes vision, dental, and life insurance. I have health insurance through work on top of my salary which is really nice.
Business: ($292.33) This includes paying for hosting/my domain for this blog and G Suite (by Google), which is $12.99 and $5 each month. I also pay for a Tailwind membership ($14.99). However, I decided to switch from GoDaddy to SiteGround, so I paid about $160 to make the switch (for the whole year). I also had a $100 giveaway on my YouTube channel!
Google Play: I pay $9.99 to listen to any music ad free.
Lor (Phone bill/car insurance): ($220) Lor = my sister. She pays my phone bill so I pay her for that. I also pay for my dad and step mom’s phone bills because my dad pays for my car insurance…the costs basically equal out. That will be about $220 each month.
Other: ($833.79) This category basically includes unnecessary spending. I wanted to break this down to exactly what I spent my money on.
Amazon Prime – $12.99 (I forgot to cancel my free membership)
Gifts – $27
Can Opener – $32.31 (mine broke)
Energy drinks and deodorant from GNC – $39.09
Amazon – $147.94 (protein powder, The 4 Hour work week, shampoo and conditioner, vegan collagen pills, and balcony lights)
Victoria’s Secret – $70.20 (I needed underwear, they had a sale)
USPS certified mail – $4.20 (letter to the IRS)
AirBnB (half payment) – $316.47 (me and my bf are going to Miami in August!)
Airplane ticket to Boston – $183.59 (In May I am going up to Massachusetts to see my family)
Excluding my savings and debt I spent a total of $3,542.73.
Let’s review my March goals
- Invest $100 into my Roth IRA CHECK
- Pay off my last credit card (over $1600) CHECK
- Make over $600 from Mediavine NOPE
April Goals
- Put an extra $1000 toward my car loan
- Make over $600 from Mediavine