Category Archives: Not Impressed With Our Debt

Not Impressed with Our Debt January 2020 Update

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Originally I had a good solid “plan” when I started this journey of paying off our debt. Unfortunately that plan is in need of a change.

The momentum that I started with has changed because I am not working 55+ hours a week anymore. I have decided to adjust and take a different approach to this whole debt thing, which is exactly what we should do if things are not working out, right?

From this point on I am just going to concentrate on one debt or “goal” at a time and do one monthly update at the end of the month. I might update you on things that strike me in between but other than that, it will be a monthly update.

Last update I was paying on that pesky medical bill which was at $2,500 and I am very happy to say that it is now at $992.00! I have paid off about $1500. Two more months and we will be done with it!

I do have some great news to share on the money front! I have been offered a job with the 2020 Census where I will be the Field Operation Supervisor for my county and will be able to do both my regular job and this position. It means back to 55+ hours a week but I hope to get at least 2 to 3 debts paid in full during this period. Very exciting! I start the Census job in a couple of weeks.

We will see where I am at the end of February which even with the extra day makes it a short month.

Until next update…. -MM

computer desk laptop stethoscope

Photo by Negative Space on Pexels.com

 

Not Impressed With Our Debt Week #69

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I apologize for not giving you an end of month update for October. When I ran the numbers I was disappointed in myself and couldn’t figure out why the numbers were not adding up correctly. So I just let October go.

Let’s see instead where we are at week 69.

I wanted to pay off the Bank of America Credit Card in October. That didn’t happen for a couple of reasons. One: we overspent and Two: I paid $500 towards the medical bill instead, because they were breathing down my neck.

I have managed though to get $700 paid off on the BOA Credit card so that’s not so bad. It’s not $2000 paid off but hey…..

How did I get $1200 paid off between the two when it wasn’t in the budget this month? I was blessed enough to receive a bonus and a raise at one of my jobs and unbeknownst to me I still had a whopping 70+ hours of vacation time that was just sitting there for me to cash in at my other job. So I had my manager each week for three weeks use that vacation time and add it to my check. That was definitely a blessing to me!

Those two blessings added up to 1200 extra dollars which I plowed into our debt.

Right now the Bank of America is at $1392.00 from approximately $2000 and the Medical bill is at $2500 from $3000.

This next week I will be paying another $500 towards the medical. I finally signed up for a payment plan. I said I would pay $500 each month which is pretty steep but it will get it paid by March.

The total for all of the debt I am talking about on this blog still doesn’t add up to what I want again because clearly we have added debt in other areas so I will just concentrate on the BOA credit card and the Medical and then I can tackle the rest of the stuff.

In closing this post I want to put a question out to all of you. Why are we so uncomfortable with talking about our money?

The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that 40 million Americans suffer from anxiety and that financial worries are a massive trigger for this.

So why don’t we talk about money more? Couldn’t we help each other? Couldn’t we learn real information from each other? I don’t get it. We are comfortable about talking about the most intimate parts of ourselves but not about money. Makes no sense to me.

I’ll leave you with that thought. Until next time. -MM

 

 

Not Impressed With Our Debt – Week 64 of 80 – Hospital Bill

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I finally had to call the grant department about my emergency room bill to find out the status of my application. Like I thought, we earn too much and we were rejected.

I spoke in depth with the woman and she suggested going on the payment plan. I told her what had happened the last time I went on a payment plan and even she agreed they were ridiculous. Her advice to me was to keep paying as much as I could monthly and if someone from the collection department called to ignore the call and block the number. I kind of chuckled at that. But honestly that’s what I have done before.

This week I will call and set up a payment plan for as low as I can get away with every month to satisfy the hospital goons. My plan is to pay as much as I can each week and hopefully in a few months that bill will be paid.

One good thing on the debt paying front is that I got $500 paid off on the Bank of America card this week and I had my husband add $20 more a week to his 401k because we got 2 more major bills paid off.

I am disappointed in not getting even a little help with the ER bill but now that I know I can concentrate on getting that bill paid off quickly.

We are back in the right direction of paying down our debt folks and it feels good! I’ll be back with an update on the 30th. -MM

 

Not Impressed with our Debt Week 62 of 80 – Monthly Update September 2019

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I was waiting until I heard about my hospital bill to update you on our debt, but so far I have heard nothing.

I took the advice of my friend Kathy and applied for a grant through the hospital.

I was reluctant to apply but in the end I got all of the paperwork together and filled out the application and handed it to my friend in the billing department and now I am waiting for them to review it.

August was a wash for us financially. What I paid off in debt we spent on our trip to Ireland for our daughter’s wedding. I am fine with that actually. I wash is good in my mind.

September was school taxes so $1500 went to that.

October is looking more promising. I have a plan to pay off our Bank of America credit card which has $2000 on it at the moment. At the end of this month I can let you in on how and if I get it all paid.

Here is how our debt is looking at this point:

Last update our total owed was $32,080.81.

Right now our total is $32,647.05.

That’s a little over $500 increase but like I said between Ireland (which was lovely!) and school taxes I am not surprised.

Back on track for October!

How are you doing with your debt? -MM

 

 

Not Impressed With our Debt Week 52 of 80

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It has been a couple of months since I have checked in and for that I apologize. One very good thing happened in my time away from you and that very good thing would be I got our Home Equity loan paid off!! Yes! The last $300 of that balance and filing fees was paid in June and I am just waiting for my recorded discharge.

Even though our debt balance went up because of the medical bills and tractor, that home equity being paid in full is quite an amazing feeling. Having a debt of $17,000 get paid in full is a big accomplishment. We can handle these smaller debts much easier.

With $328 a month freed up from the Home Equity payment we can put it into the medical bill debt. When I started the medical bill debt was $3461.27. So far this month I have gotten $518.78 paid on that debt and it is now down to $2942.49. Not bad!

One more debt we have added to which I am fessing up to right now is we are going to Ireland this summer for our daughter’s wedding. Yes Ireland! Normally we wouldn’t take such an extravagant trip but this is a special circumstance. With this trip we have learned a lot about traveling internationally so far and with that came the cost of three passports, hotels, car rentals, airfare, insurance, and spending money. We paid the passports in cash because we could not charge them but the rest, you guessed it, had to go on the credit card. Hey, it’s a rare change of a lifetime and what’s an extra $3000?

So after medical bills, new tractor, and a trip to Ireland our debt is back up to $32,080.81.

Not great huh? After we get back from Ireland our school taxes are due and we need our boiler looked at before snow flies so I will probably not have much of a chance to get any extra debt paid off until October. Major bummer. However, in October there are five paychecks for each of us so my goal is to get $1000 extra paid off in the month of October.

Thanks for the support on all of this my friends. We know you are rooting for us. I’ll check back in, in a couple of weeks! -MM

I would love to hear about your debt repayment goals and what has worked for you. Message me at marymargaretripley@yahoo.com with your debt stories!

Not Impressed With Our Debt – Week 44 of 80 – Challenges

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Remember when I told you about a trip to the emergency room in November last year and as of yet had not been billed for it? Well I finally got the bill…all $3200 of it. Yeah, and I have insurance and I still had to pay over $4000 for an emergency visit! This high deductible crap is getting old.

To add to our debt this month we desperately needed a new lawn tractor to mow our large yard. The one we have been using was getting too run down and the expensive repairs really didn’t fix the problems the mower had so we reluctantly bought a new one. We felt that a quality mower from a real dealer was the way to go. The initial cost is more expensive but the quality is 10 times better than a mower from a Walmart or Home depot. This new mower like the medical bill, cost us about $3200.

So our debt went up $6400 this month.

I considered giving up for a few months on these financial posts because our debt went up instead of down which just sounded awful to me and because I have two other blog series I want to pursue this summer.

However, after thinking about it more IĀ  want people to know that things aren’t always going to be rosy when you are trying to get rid of debt. My husband told me I was making paying off our debt sound too easy and that to the reader we weren’t struggling every week. We ARE struggling every week. That is a reality for us, but do people really want to hear about reality? The bottom line is every single week we are paying off our debt regardless of the setbacks.

There is always going to be something that comes along that is a set back for a while. Vehicles come and go, home repairs from storms, new mattresses and those pesky medical bills to name a few but you can’t let it slow you down or break your commitment to paying off debt. Two steps forward, one step back? I guess that’s the case for us this time. Debt has its highs and lows.

When I started this series of posts I didn’t really think many people would read them. Do people really care that much about debt? You know what though? I have been surprised by the number of people that have come up to me and have mentioned how much they look forward to reading my debt challenge posts and to keep doing it.

Is there any good news you ask? Our home equity balance is now at $228. You know what that means right? Happy dance to come this month! I will have a BIG post when I make that last payment in a few weeks.

Keep at it my friends…keep at it. -MM

Not Impressed with our Debt – Week 39 of 80 – April 2019 Results

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April was catch up month for us so as expected the results are not spectacular.

We started off the month with $25,421 and as of today we are at $24,750. That’s down $671 which is the lowest I think I have had so far. But hey, it’s still forward progress right?!

I was only able to make a regular payment to the home equity this month so that debt went from $900 to $578. In the month of May baring anything unforeseen we should be doing our happy dance for paying it off! Fingers and toes crossed.

Even though April was less that productive in my mind I did realize something very exciting which will keep us motivated and moving forward in getting our debt gone for good.

I really started all of this paying off debt stuff in August of 2014. Our starting point was a whopping $143,775.35. Totally embarrassing right? Keep in mind that part of all of that is our mortgage but only about $50,000. That means over $90,000 was pure car, credit card, and home equity loans. Yikes right?

But here’s the cool thing, in less than 5 years, we have paid off an astonishing $71,300! Our total debt right now including house, car, credit cards, and loans is down to $72,475.

I couldn’t believe it when I tallied it. I have kept a white board since 2014, diligently marking down our progress every week and month for each debt when have. Cars have come and gone and credit cards have been paid off one by one.

My husband and I are pretty proud of what we have accomplished. It makes it worth the hard work we put into it. Hopefully some day we can pay for a vacation by swiping our debit card and not our credit card right?

We will see what May brings! See you next update. -MM