Debt Report ~ June 2018

June was a blur! There was lots of swimming, Father’s Day, and a family wedding. I had several doctor’s appointments, work was extra busy, and Landon sat all by himself for a haircut. Where does the time go? It seems like days are long but months are fast!

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Debt Summary

Woo hoo!  We are under $150,000! Doesn’t that number still seem so huge? It does, but we started out at almost $185,000. Getting under $150,000 is a great milestone!!

Last month I mentioned using money from our snowball for a pool ladder, but that actually came out of the June snowball.  I was doing our report so late into the month that I didn’t realize it.  Other than that, we didn’t take anything extra from our snowball. It felt like a tight month (even though we have plenty of money in the bank) because we were trying NOT to take any more out of our snowball payment.

We paid for a wedding gift and a small amount of clothing for me. I had nothing to wear to the wedding because I still can’t fit into my pre-pregnancy clothes (sigh), and I also didn’t have much to wear for summer. I shopped at the thrift store first and found several great deals.  Then I also went to Kohl’s with the help of a 30% off coupon. Overall I spent less than $120.

We paid close to $1500 in our snowball payment this month. Obviously I COULD have used some of that money to cover the clothing, but I didn’t want to! I want us moving forward on our debt as much as possible.  So I re-allocated money from the Christmas category and will have to work to put it back by December.

Debt Percentages

The unsecured debt (balance transfers) and auto loan figures are starting to look manageable! In just a few months, the unsecured debt number will be practically cut in half!

Our average interest rate went up from 4.1% to 4.2% because we are paying off a 0% debt right now. It will continue going up each month while we work to pay off our balance transfers before the 0% rate expires.

We have received several more balance transfer offers, and I’ve REALLY considered moving our auto loan to a 0% card.  On the surface, it seems like it would always be a good idea to eliminate interest. Once I did the math, I determined it would only save us around $300. Our interest rate is 3.79%, and of course the amount of interest we are paying decreases every month. It didn’t seem worth it to go through the effort and put the added pressure on ourselves to save only $300. What if we have another emergency? Keeping a little flexibility is more important than $300 right now.

Payoff Progress

Method: Modified snowball method using Undebt.it

Our progress moved from 30.3% up to 33.8%, and we lowered our debt balance by $2,529.43 this month!  The next debt to be paid off is coming up in September. It’s right around the corner, but it feels SO far away. It’s hard to be patient when we’re finally seeing the end in sight.

Wasted Money?

We paid $519.69 in interest for June, so it’s SLIGHTLY less than May. The debts we are working on right now are at 0%, so we won’t see dramatic changes in our interest until 2019. At least it’s going down. I want to chop that number, but I just need to be patient and stick with the plan.

More Wasted Money??

Our dining out spending has been consistently over budget. I feel like I keep talking about it every month, and we keep overspending. Ugh.  Do we increase the budget? We could….but that doesn’t really align with our goals. I think the real issue (as I mentioned last month) is boredom with our meals and lack of proper meal planning and meal prep. I need to make that more of a priority and enlist help from the hubs.

We spent $213.05 on dining out in June, so that’s $113.05 over budget. We had to take that money from other categories that are probably more important categories. If you asked us if we would rather put gas in our cars or eat out, of course we would choose gas…so why do we keep robbing the gas category?

Bonus Money?

We cashed out credit card cash back earnings in the amount of $182.47 in June. This is one thing that saved us and helped us cover the clothing and the dining out overspending.

We don’t WANT to use the cash back to cover overspending. I want it to be EXTRA money. I want to use it for debt payoff, a family fun activity, or even to get ahead on our true expenses. I don’t work so hard to optimize our cash back in order to eat that money!

July will be better. July will be better. July will be better.  Say it with me.  July will be better.  It’s funny how much the overspending annoys me given our current financial picture compared to a couple years ago. We have come SO FAR. We have savings. We aren’t adding to our debt. We’re making good progress.  I just don’t want to ignore the overspending issue because I don’t want it to get out of hand again. It’s a slippery slope!

Are your finances harder to manage during the summer? What’s your biggest challenge right now? Share in the comments!