The $300 from selling my old, broken jewelry online, plus the minimum payment, is enough to pay off the next debt in the snowball.


Accounts left to pay off

Truck

***Under $1500***
CitiBank CC
Capital One CC
Discover CC
Target CC
PayPal #1
Dell

***Under $1k***
Walmart
BN CC
Home Depot
Amazon
Ulta
PayPal #2
Old QS CC
BuyPower CC
iPhone

***Paid Off***
Venus CC 7/'18
Lenscrafters CC 7/'18
Lowes CC 7/'18
JCP CC 5'18
QS CC ??/'18
CareCredit CC ??/'18

Again, this is really just for me to keep track of our progress. Paying off Lenscrafters.


Accounts left to pay off

Truck

***Under $1500***
CitiBank CC
Capital One CC
Discover CC
Target CC
PayPal #1
Dell

***Under $1k***
Walmart
BN CC
Home Depot
Amazon
Ulta
PayPal #2
Old QS CC
BuyPower CC
iPhone
Venus CC

***Paid Off***
Lenscrafters CC 7/'18
Lowes CC 7/'18
JCP CC 5'18
QS CC ??/'18
CareCredit CC ??/'18

I sold my motorcycle to a fabulous young woman heading to college for small engine repair. I listed it for $400, she offered me $300, I was so happy to sell it to her that I took it right away, no negotiating. Happy to have it gone and for her to have it. She's already named it Gretchen . . .

Took some old jewelry to the pawn shop and got $80 for it. I didn't even think I would get $50, so counting that as a super win.

Paid off another debt, and set aside $60 as my husband feels more comfortable when we have more than just the basic emergency fund, so we are doing a 52 week (sort of) challenge at the same time as paying off debt.

I've not sold any of my stuff on CL yet, and I'm getting antsy. The $63/mo savings on our cell phones won't kick in until the end of August, beginning of September. I am still collecting items for a large yard sale at the end of August that will involve two other families.


I have a friend who used sellyourgold.com before, so I decided to go through my jewelry, dig deep, and sell some of the things I haven't worn in years. In total, it's about an ounce, although there are some pearls on a gold chain, so the weight isn't all gold. I'll be mailing it tomorrow morning, and hoping for the best. I have to drive about 20 miles to a Fedex location, so I'll use my BBB gift card while I'm in the area, and I'll also try some of the Field Agent jobs I've heard about.

***Update*** They offered me $297 for the gold, plus an additional $5 if I left a review, so I did. $300 seems like a little less than I expected, but still high enough that we decided to accept it. After all, it's mostly a pile of broken jewelry, and this will just about pay off another debt.

I took some time yesterday to really delve into combining our cell phone plans as we are with different carriers. When all was said and done, we ended up saving $63/mo versus our previous individual plans. We also got a $100 accessories gift card for the store.

$63 more to the debt snowball starting in September.

I also went to buy a new hair clip with my very small pocket money allowance, and was appalled that they were $5. I needed a new one, so decided to buy it anyway. When I got to the register, I had $3 in rewards (!), so paid only $2 for the clip.

I also had a $10 off a $10 purchase at Staples, so bought a $9.99 pack of blank discs and a .99 storage bin.

It was a good money day. Now, if I could sell any of the things I put on CL, I'd be super happy as I could actually pay off a debt.

I decided to sell some things I don't need or use anymore (or enough to keep right now at least) on Craig's List. I dragged them out of the garage yesterday, cleaned them up, and posted them last night. I will take almost anything to get them gone, but I've posted my rototiller for $400, motorcycle for $400, and my practically new motorcycle helmet for $75. A couple responses so far, but no real interest.

I think we sold an old beast of a snowblower for $100. It worked up until someone offered to 'fix' it for me at the start of last year, after which it never started again. The buyer is supposed to come today; not counting my money until it's in my hands, but this would be more than just money, it's also one eyesore hulking pile of metal that will be gone from the back of the yard.

I'm also gathering up everything I can come up with to bring down to my mother's at the end of August to have a big yard sale.

Hopefully I can look back on this over the coming months and see how much progress I've made. We are being financially strangled by a million small minimum payments on credit cards. The plus side of that is with so many with balances under (and mostly well under) $1k, progress comes quickly and keeps me motivated.

Accounts left to pay off

Truck

***Under $1500***
CitiBank CC
Capital One CC
Discover CC
Target CC
PayPal #1
Dell

***Under $1k***
Walmart
BN CC
Home Depot
Amazon
Ulta
PayPal #2
Old QS CC
BuyPower CC
Venus CC
iPhone
Lenscrafters CC

***Paid Off***
Lowes CC 7/'18
JCP CC 5'18
QS CC ?? '18
CareCredit CC ?? '18

I came across this site while looking for some Dave Ramsey forms. I couldn't believe my old posts were even still here! It was amazing reading through them as my life is so different now.

Of course, I wrote an amazingly long post, and got logged out/timed out/whatever, so lost it all. So . . . redoing the quick version.

**This will be boring for anyone to read; it's for my accountability. Just warning anyone who might read it. You'll never get those minutes back. ;-)**

Worked really hard before to become debt free, also got divorced. Saved up money, bought a cheap house for cash, bought two used cars for cash so that when one was in the garage for repairs I could still get to work, saved up for an amazing solo vacation to Moorea, an island off Tahiti, and most of a trip to Iceland with some friends.

***Going Back Into Debt
Got back from Tahiti a little broke, but came across a car that was much better than mine, for a crazy low price. Ended up using my EF to buy it and pay for the few repairs it needed. Started using my credit card . . . but didn't touch my long term EF. Dumb.

Met my future husband. Spent the remaining EF on our wedding. It was an amazing dream wedding that we only spent $4k on, so totally worth it. We lived in his small apartment (long story) until we could move into my house. Ended up charging my spending money in Iceland; bought a new washer for the house; spent oodles of money redoing the bedroom at the house; and spent tons of money while living at the apartment because it was quite stressful to be there and we agreed that we would rather go into credit card debt than deal with living in the apartment without being able to have fun. And fun we had. Now it's time to pay down the debt.

***Income situation
This is a little up in the air as I am changing jobs. I'll make less money, but pay less for insurance, and will avoid the daily tolls and 2 hour daily commute cost, so the lower pay should be offset by the savings in gas/tolls and insurance. Together we should make $75-$80k.

***Debt situation
We have about $10k across a bunch of credit cards (about $3k mine before meeting my husband), and about $30k left on my husband's truck. We pay about $500/mo toward credit cards and $550 for the truck. I've worked out the debt snowball by hand and with the debt snowball calculator on undebtit. We should be free of debt by October 2021.

***Goal
My goal is to look back on this post four years from now and think, omg, curbing spending sucked, but it was so worth it. We have two mortgage-free houses (inherited family vacation home on river that we use for vacation), a beautiful paid truck, no debt at all, and a fully funded 3-6 month EF.