Thursday, May 21, 2009

A Snowball's Chance in...

The bad news:

  • Due to certain changes (to pay schedule, benefits alterations, and - mostly - losing a freelance gig), our monthly income has been reduced by $551 per month.
  • This change reduces our debt snowball from $718 a month to $167 a month.
  • Plus, we've had to stop the snowball repeatedly to cover other expenses. Like $1,300 to fix the van. Like to have a baby (the LAST baby, silly, not a NEW baby - yet, ha). Like to reshingle the house this summer. Like the curtains I bought and haven't hung up. Gah.
  • Meanwhile, we've run up against our biggest debt yet, the student loans. They currently have a balance of $15,553. It's like chipping away at a granite wall with a fork. A plastic fork.
The good news:
  • Boy am I glad we were snowballing that money in the first place! Imagine if I had to cut $551 out of our actual budget.
  • I'm also glad we were snowballing at all, since we're in a much better financial situation than we were two years ago.
  • Those expenses? The van, the grumpy baby, the curtains? We've cashflowed them. No new debt, and that's a great thing, yes?

While I'd like to be making more/faster progress on paying off the debt, I think it's time to redefine "success" around here. Sometimes, in some seasons of our lives (and the economy), just keeping our heads above water is a success. Glug glug.

2 comments:

Swistle said...

This is totally awesome. I know that conflicted feeling---like, I guess I'm glad we have the money to pay for the broken furnace without using our credit card, but on the other hand we were planning to send that money to our CREDIT CARD BALANCE.

Unknown said...

EEEK! Swistle! Posted on MY blog! Happy day!

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