Checking in with final numbers for February.....

Starting balance                                                          Ending balance

$67,822.59                1st Mortgage                    $67,321.24

$15,177.75                2nd Mortgage                   $14,977.66

$17,274.10                Car                                          $16,493.66

Total debt paid down $1,481.88.  Debt went from $100,274.44 to $98,792.56 - under $100,000!!  

In addition, we used our tax refund to get us to a full 1 month ahead and back fill some of our true expense categories.

Hi, I'm Tina. I am pretty new to YNAB but I am committed and I really need to make a change. I have almost exactly 40k in debt, which I accumulated through a number of bad decisions and one good one, cc's, car loan, personal loans, and a student loan. My balance on my smallest card is only $205 so that's this months goal. Looking to the future, I was thinking $100 a month so I can focus on step two.  

Thanks

Tina

Hi, I‘m Vivienne and I have just started using the YNAB app, soaking up the Whiteboard Wednesday videos on YT. I have almost €14000 in debt comprising overdraft, IKEA cc and Visa cc.  I am aiming to halve my debt in 2019 while slowly building a buffer. Using the YNAB app is giving me the peace of mind that I can achieve this and clearly shows what I need to change. Amazon is missing me already:) 

It‘s good to know that I am not alone on this path to taking back control of personal finances! 

First check in for March.... $1,866 towards the initial balance of $10,416 so far I have paid off $6.265 or 60% of my debt.  Still on track for a May payoff date.  Still hoping to throw another $500 or so at this by the end of March.   I can't wait to finish this payoff and then crank up my retirement savings.  Time to grow that baby!!!

Tax refund came and added some of that to the Mortgage. This month also celebrates my mortgage turning one year old. If I would have stuck to the standard payment I would have only paid off $1,455 😱! Instead, I managed to knock it down over $8,000 in the first year and have now reduced my interest payment by $33.65. 

• Starting Balance (January  2019): $69,112.11
• Current Balance: $65,539.52
• Paid Off this Year: $3,572.59

Overall Progress Update:

• Starting Balance (April 2018): $74,400.00
• Total Paid Off: $8,860.48

The system went down for maintenance right in the middle of me trying to post last night, let's see if I do better this time...

1) As of February, it was $75,000 for our Heloc
2) $25,000. My goal is to get the principal down to $50k by June. We are getting some more windfalls (state tax refund and one time bonus) that should do that without very much restructuring of my budget.
Because we're parking some long term savings there as well, though, I have a stretch goal of getting the principal down to $45k by December. That would mean the principal really was paid down by 50k, even with the temporary parking of savings there. Because our budget is snug, it really will be a stretch to find that extra 5k.
3) Thanks to windfalls already received (annual bonus and fed tax return), I've already paid the principal down by over 8k. 
4) I'm line 241. I'm hoping that posting our progress will not only help me celebrate our success but help me remember the value of not dipping into the HELOC more than planned.

Debts:

Car - $4672.67

IRS - $15,383.51

Student Loan - $25,198.77

Goal: pay off car by the end of the year (at the latest)

Hello all,

I'm new to YNAB.  

Debts:

Car- $4259.02

Waterproofing- $15,249.98

Student Loan- $52,560.42

I've paid off $5,736.13 so far this year on my car. I'm really anxious to get it paid off and was able to get a chunk gone due to a tax refund and throwing anything else that I can at it. 

I'm still waiting on my ex-husband's refund that will go to me because he is behind on child support. That should be another $2k. I'm really trying to get the car paid off by the end of July if at all possible. 

I'm doing things a little different than Dave Ramsey would say I should- currently my student loan is in forebearance- still accruing interest. I did this because I wanted to be able to get my car paid off faster. It has helped, but I know it's not good to also keep accruing interest and letting it fester. 

Have any of you done similar things with student loans- did it help or did you regret it? 

I went backwards this month and incurred debt (impulse spending on credit cards - YIKES!). My new debt total is $8,872.78. I added $1,206.59 in new debt. My new monthly minimum payment total is $259 (+ $18). I will pay $382.15 this month which is more than the $367 I thought I would pay. I will pay an additional $300+ at the end of the month. Next month I will pay the minimums and an additional $300+ and will try to do that every month going forward. I have updated the spreadsheet to reflect my current status. I have tightened the budget up even more and have a plan to pay off all my debt by winter of 2020.

I hope it's ok that I have joined in. I have been an on/off user of YNAB since YNAB3 days! Today I have committed to be an on/on user.

I have approx $11K debt on my work credit card (I'm self employed), $10K on my personal credit card, and about $3k owing to the tax department. 

The tax is my first priority. I have lots of invoices owing to me, and am hoping that it all comes in soon so I can get the tax paid off quickly.

My overall aim for debt reduction this year is $6k from today. 

Last july when I first began to usae YNAB I had 16 120$ debt comprising of :
8650$ credit card debt
4630 line of credit
2340$ car loan
around 500$ of misc loan from friends

for this exercise, I do not consider my student load because I have a very low rate. I will pay it in the maximum time allowed since I can acheive investment with better returns.

I had my first child in november so I did not pay as much debt as I wanted but I think I am on my way.
As this date, I acheive to get it to: 13 465$
My credit card did not move that much at 8550$
the line of credit get down to 4150$
The car load is on is way to 0$ at 765$
I have no more small loan

My goal is to acheive to pay the car loan completly and 5000$ of my credit card debt
 

Thanks for this challenge, I'm joining in!

My situation: I started YNAB mid-January of this year. Over the past year, I've opened a new credit card with 0% interest until July 2019 to cover some larger expenses, and unfortunately I fell into the trap of using it to buy things without too much accountability. I've never had debt before, and I've always paid my credit card in full before that - even though I was living on the credit card float. 

Now 2019 arrived, and I figured I should start to seriously pay back this credit card before July to avoid the interest fees. I have accumulated about $10,000 of debt on that card. 

My goal is to pay it back by July, and I've been putting about $2000 each month toward this payment. Ouch, it has definitely hurt my life style, but I can live frugally when I need to, so that's what I'm doing. It's very tight, but I think I can make it work. 

My main issue has been that I'm still using this CC for my expenses, and I have to manage reimbursable expenses from my work, which YNAB doesn't handle easily. So I've been mixing things up a bit at the beginning, and the money I thought I was using to pay off the credit card ended up being spent on other things. I know ideally I should stop using this card to make things simpler, but I really don't want to; I want the more-than-average reward points I get from it (I use them to fly home to Europe where I'm from at least once a year, and I don't want to sacrifice that), and I'd rather not have to change all my automatic payments. So I'm pretty set to using it, and make YNAB work for me in this situation. 

I have an emergency fund that I could use to pay off some of the credit card if, in July, I happen to not have met my goal, but I'd really like to avoid that...

Well I got the final paperwork for the student loans that were wrote off. A bit more than $10,000 principal forgiven and a whopping $108,500 in interest and penalties.  All cleared off my records and I am no longer responsible to pay it. 

Another $175 out of this pay paid so $800 so far this month.  

I checked the payoff on our car this morning and am sooooooo tempted to pay it off with our emergency fund. (Made a post in the FB fan group if you're on there) but at this point, I think we're going to hold tight at least for now and stay with the current plan.  Car will be paid off regardless in 4 months but it's hard to not just make the jump and get the loan completely off my plate!

March

Paid $1,788.26 across all my credit card, with the large bulk of it ($1,500) going towards my Discover card. I am on track to paying it off by October since my 0% APR balance ends in November.  

Also went on vacation this month and stuck with my cash budget.

Some days it's really hard to stick with the plan and I feel demotivated  but I'm trying to think about how I will feel in December when most of the debts have been paid off.

I'm so excited! I got my ex-husband's tax refund for the child support he was behind on. It was $2245. I had been saving for a car and had saved $10k, but since my ex-husband wasn't working and wasn't playing child support I ended up not being able to save up as much as I had wanted to and my old car kept breaking down so I ended up financing the car I have now. I hate having a car payment! So over the last year (It'll be a year that I've had the car on March 17th) I have worked so hard to get this paid down. Once the payment goes through on Monday, I'll only have $1654 left on my car!! It was originally $27k. Once I pay the car off, I'll just have my waterproofing loan and my student loans!

My waterproofing loan has a high interest rate. Do you think it would be a good idea to refinance it or just pay aggressively? I owe a little over $15k on the waterproofing loan @ 9.99% interest.

March has been...slower. Doing business taxes, prepping for the check we'll be writing to the IRS, cash flowing ETPs, expenses such as car registration and making sure we stay on top of our bills so that we're not using the cards. AT ALL!!! Means that we only paid down approximately $2K this month so far. I think we'll end up around $5K. The slowing momentum has made it hard to focus. I've overspent on personal care items...I must say the facial was the tipping point into excessive. We are here to confess and correct, right? I'm doing better and, Wamming like crazy from eating out. Frozen lunches here I come. Sigh.