I only made one tiny payment to one portion of my loans, it was vacation month so only the minimums were accounted for haha 😝  Still looking for a new job so I can afford more than my regular bills. Haven't forgotten about this here smackdown!!

Ok, I realized that I hadn't included our dental balance in the debt total, and I wanted to add in the new (no interest) computer payment plan we added. So: here is our debt situation now, starting February:

Amex: $212.83 (full payment scheduled!)

CC (8%): $705 ($100 scheduled)

NI Home improvement: $1576 ($244 will be scheduled for 2nd half)

Dental balance: $707 ($75 scheduled)

NI Computer loan: $1850 ($93 scheduled for 2nd half)

Total Debt: 5050.83

Total Feb Payments: 724.83 (most already allocated, two waiting for 2nd half of month. 

Ok, this makes me feel better, strangely, even though the total amount is bigger. It's because I can see it all more clearly in one place, and I see what I'm doing, And in April, our separate monthly orthodontia bill *should* be finished (crosses fingers) so I can really finish smacking the last credit card with that extra $200/month. 

Looks like we will have everything paid off at the end of November!  How exciting!

Checking in for February. So far I have lowered my debt $269.61. One of the personal loans was to a friend that told me that it was a birthday present and I did not have to pay her back.

Child Support: $75 (Regular payment) + $29.61 Extra payment

Balance $1,175.00

TOTAL DEBT: $15,609.00

Okay, joining this debt challenge. (Also this is my first comment on this forum! I don't actually know what my username even is)

Total debt: 134,771.71 in student loans (as of when I refinanced in January)

Goal: get the total below $70K by the end of 2018

My plan is this... I live a little bit further from downtown that I would really like and I currently have a roommate. Rather than move to a 1-bedroom downtown, I'm going to take the difference between what I would spend in rent there and what I actually pay in rent and put it toward extra payment on the loans. I calculated that I could pay my loans off 12-13 years faster if I just sucked it up for a bit longer.

My wife and I are finally going to crush that student debt! At the beginning of the year, we had $6061.36 left in our student loans. Our goal is to have that number crushed by November at the latest (shooting for September!). 

We were able to pay down a large chunk in January, but then installed a fence for our dogs, so that added some debt back on to the HELOC. We were still able to pay off our smallest credit card, though, as well as put $1000 towards our camper loan. This month I'm using my tax return to pay off my next credit card, at $3220. Then we will have only $1000 balance on the camper loan, and about $7500 on the HELOC.

January (and early February) Update Time!

Checking in with line 25 on the debt smackdown spreadsheet 💪

Total debt as of 2/6/18:

• Total Debt Currently Owed: $58,700.16  $57,533.79

Debt Breakdown: 

• Student Loan A: $6,059.71 @ 6.80% interest ---> NOW $5,936.80
• Student Loan B: $3,447.48 @ 3.86% interest ---> NOW $3,062.37
• Student Loan C: $5,086.18 @ 4.66% interest ---> NOW $4,993.41
• Student Loan E: $7,210.71 @ 4.29% interest ---> NOW $7,079.17
• ACCU EdLOC:  $36,896.08 @ 4.73% interest --> NOW $36,462.04

Main Goals: pay off $12k total with a stretch goal of $15k.

In total I've paid $1,435.00 between Jan and Feb. Including interest adjustments, this is a net decrease of 0.98%. While this is not a huge amount, I have more news to share that will drastically change the challenge for me this year!!

I have been accepted to LSU's graduate school and will be starting on March 2nd. I plan on cash-flowing this degree as much as possible and putting my current loans in deferment and paying as much as I can manage on both the loans and the school program itself. I know that it will set me back overall, but I'm excited to start school again and be studying something that I really care about! Higher education leadership and research. 

Better late than never! NO SHAME! My goal is to pay down $10,000 of debt (credit card and student loans) this year. Now, onto updating the spreadsheet!! 

I've been meaning to jump in since I saw the unofficial thread pop up. I'm glad that the challenge remains open to those of us who waited to look our totals in the eye.

1. The total amount of debt that I owe: 
$3540 Credit Card
$17120 School Loan 1
$1730 School Loan 2
$5080 Car Loan
$1680 Surgery Expenses
TOTAL: ~$29,000

2. Total amount I'd like to pay off in 2018:
$12000 to include 100% of CC by end of year ($3600)

3. So far for 2018, I have made $675 in payments.

My autopay came out for February, so I'll update now. I will almost certainly have another payment before the end of the month, but we'll start with what we have.

Starting Debt: $19,973.84
Paid in February: $504
Remaining Debt: $18,478.60
 

Goal: $10,000
Total Paid: $1,579
Percent to Goal: 15.79%

Paid another $375 today toward my overall $8200 payoff goal. 16.99% of the way there!

Mid-Feb check-in:

So far this month, I've sent $2095.02 towards debt paydown!

This represents my combined minimum payments (~$1300) plus a one-time extra payment from my tax refunds. I'm currently working on building up a $1000 mini e-fund and am sending my snowball and any "found" snowflake payments there, so I'm not sending any additional funds to the debt snowball yet, so the additional chunk taken out due to the tax returns was a nice morale boost! :)

Additionally, I'm working on building up a monthly buffer, and am on track to be able to send all of next week's Feb 23rd paycheck to my March budget (hooray!).

However, I'm realizing that since that money will be sitting around ready to pay my first half of March bills, including two of my larger CC minimum payments - I might go ahead and "unbuffer" those two CCs by sending them their payments early, to save a handful of interest. I'm mulling this over and haven't quite decided if this a great and clever idea or a silly way to overcomplicate things, but I think I might go ahead and do this come payday. :)

To clarify: the statements for those two CCs have already posted, and they have due dates in early March, and I have minimum-payment autopays set up for them for March 1st, so if I change nothing they'd be included in my March budget. But since the money to pay them will hit my bank account on Feb 23rd, I might go in and switch the autopays to pay right away, effectively shifting them into my Feb budget. It wouldn't be an *extra* payment, just a shift to an earlier date within the payment cycle, so if I try this out, I could always switch the payments back to the first of the month in the future, if I'm cutting things too close at the end of a month and need that extra breathing room back. Hmm.

Any thoughts on this? Thanks!

I paid $2,500 in principal in February to my student loans so $3,900 for this year so far. 

Only $36,100 to go to hit my $40,000 goal!