Second Week of August Update

This week was a lot tougher. While we still were able to squeak out some debt reduction, our progress was hampered. My wife had her two sisters in for the week, on into the weekend, and so we made the 3 hour trip to return them on Sunday. Of course, we ate lunch on the way ($25), and then we called some friends of ours that live that direction, and had dinner with them ($30). And there was the gas to get us there and back (about $50). So Sunday saw $100 over our normal budget disappear. Also, on Saturday, we wrote a $500 check for earnest money on a house. That will hold the lot until we figure out the specifics. (They don't cash it, just hold it)

I’m not exactly sure if now is the right time to be buying a house, but it seems to be as good as any economy-wise, and, although it will slow our debt reduction to a crawl, it will also keep us motivated to reduce our debt as quickly as we can between now and then.

Plus, the house is a new one, so it will take 4-1/2 to 5 months to build, so we have some time to really buckle down and focus.

So, with all of that said, here’s the new numbers…

We left the credit card with a balance of $6,107.07 last week. Today it is sitting at $5,662.07, for a total difference of $445, or $63.57/day.

When we started the month, our credit card had a balance of $6,551.07, so we’ve paid it down $889 in 14 days, or $63.50 per day. There were several cheats that I employed this week to keep the balance coming down, however. First off, we used a vehicle reimbursement check to jump start, and my wife got paid early for some of her work, so we lumped that in as well. I’ve got the $200 set aside for the refrigerator, so we don’t have that to worry about.

Now we come to the rest of the month. On Monday night, we got a call from my wife’s parents letting us know that her grandmother had passed away. This will mean another trip for the funeral. Also, my wife is a nanny, and they are on vacation this week, so while she’s been able to work on the apartment, etc., there isn’t any income along with that.

I have some money that I’m transferring from Revolution Money Exchange (for referrals, etc.) and Prosper to be able to push against debt on, but this is only about $200 all together, and once we do that, the stream is dried up.

It will be interesting to see what we can do in the next 7 days. It looks like we will get to $5,500 pretty easily, which is exciting, but I’m really, really wanting to get it to below $5,000 if we can swing it.