:) Not feeling very verbose today. This is a little unreal. We weren't planning on being done with the loan until later in 2020, and there were several times this year that I didn't think we would make the annual goal. 

Yay! On to saving for children, because by all accounts that financial road will be particularly difficult. We must never forget to make it rich in other ways, and to prepare those ways as well. 

Late on the November update.  We only paid our required car payment, required student loan payment, and a tiny bit extra that we have set up to autopay, for a total of $579.73.  As of the end of November, we were at 56.98% of our goal.

However, we did set aside a chunk of additional funds to pay in December.  We just haven't done it yet because we were buying a house, so we didn't want to have a large amount come out of our accounts while we were dealing with a lender.  Once we make our December payments, especially with husband's bonus and maybe some Christmas gifts, we will be fairly close to our goal.  Maybe about $2,000 short, but that's much better than not putting anything extra toward our payments!

Final check in for 2019. We moved some money around this year so the month by month check in numbers were a bit skewed. So for December I just put in a reconciling number to bring the whole year total up to the total decrease in debt of $4468 (yay us! which was well over the original amount I put in the spreadsheet.  That was helped by extra $500 from retro pay increase hubby got as well as just focusing on a higher per month amount as well as setting the monthly $192 pet expenses amount to debt when we lost our Max this summer. 

That leaves us with $22,800 non mortgage debt as at the end of the year. According to undebt.it, our debt payoff date is now November 2024 which is one month less than the last major review and reshuffle.

That does not include $2265 I have set aside for extra debt payments from our paycheques being higher once the max annual CPP and EI deductions were reached as well as . We are waiting to throw that in one big payment once the year is finished out and we are sure we have everything for true expenses set aside. 

Per undebt.it we should be down to $16,650 at the end of 2020 so that will be my 2020 debt smackdown goal and then see if we can beat that too! Although if we do throw the $2265 to debt, then I will update undebt.it and use the revised December 2020 number for the new challenge.

Request for next year - would it be possible to filter the debt thermometer by user? I like the graphic for myself!

December progress report on my battle against the student loan beast; last of the year!

As of March 31, 2019: $251,414.81. This is my starting balance after joining YNAB in mid-March, 2019.

As of December 23, 2019: $224,934.56.

December notes: Regular monthly payment resulted in principal reduction of $1,148.98. Made extra principal payment of $7,100.00 due to my year-end bonus at work. Total reduction of principal in December: $8,248.98.

Year-end goal was to get the balance down $31,414.81 (from the March 31, 2019 starting number) to $220,000.00. With a final $26,480.25 reduction since I've started making these progress reports, I made it to 84.29% of that goal. 

I didn't quite reach my goal, but I'm still pretty pleased with my progress. My original goal was aggressive and certain months, well, life happened and I couldn't contribute as much as I would have hoped. Here's to continuing this exercise in 2020! I've enjoyed watching everyone's progressive and it has served as great motivation to keep going. 

December/Year End Update:

We've been using YNAB for 16 months now, and if you had asked me last year whether or not we would be able to pay off $38,694.53 in debt while increasing our giving, I would have not even considered the question.  YNAB is truly amazing, and I look forward to seeing how the same principles will help us prepare for likely lower income in the future.  At the very least, having our monthly debt expenses gone will help with managing every day living.

Regarding this year and this challenge, I still am having difficulty comprehending (I know that it happened, and I see the mathematical logic, but my brain can't quite follow how  we made it happen) our success.  I pretty much figure that when the going got tough and I couldn't logically see how we could make it work, the encouragement and accountability and graphs (and more encouragement) found on this thread kept us going, and here we are!  So, thank you very, very much!

2019 Numbers:
Goal: $23,984
Paid: $28,262

That extra 17.84% represents an extra $4,278 that we found over the year, and there were several months that I didn't think we would even get near the goal amount. 

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year for 2020!

I’m using YNAB about 2 months now and I believe I have identified all of my true expenses and real spending. I managed to clear off 1 loan 3 months ahead of schedule. 
2020 is the year for €21,500  of debt to be cleared, build my emergency fund, and budget for everything I need a budget for. 

For December I paid $1411.19 to debt. I'm happy with the progress this year and thinking about next year's goals!

October/November/December check-ins: I had elbow surgery in October and was pretty much out of commission for a month and a half, so I let the ball drop on a bunch of stuff (like the monthly check-ins, although I did keep the spreadsheet updated). I had a long list of things I wanted to get done while I was out on medical leave (Me before surgery: enforced vacation!! I’ll get so much done!!! Me after surgery: I still wasn’t able to pull my pants on today, but I did sit on the couch for awhile in my jammies! Go me!! There is a WHOLE bunch of things that I never actively realized I used two arms for, like applying face lotion or shampooing my hair, let alone the stuff that I knew would be hard, like typing or driving). 

I’m pretty happy with how my holiday spending went- I worked off a list (I always have a list but never seemed to really stick to it) and for the most part managed to keep a lid on the “last few days before Christmas, everyone needs MORE” feeling. That, plus the fact that I’ve been saving monthly all year for this one spending spree, meant that I was just able to make a big lump sum payment to clear out most of the debt taken on, and I’ll send the last $100 worth tomorrow once I’m paid. I used one credit card exclusively for everything holiday related (and I mean *everything*: groceries for baking, postage for holiday cards, presents presents presents, etc). I really think this helped keep me in budget too- seeing the balance rise (and rise) made me MUCH more aware of what I was spending than in previous years, when I would use whichever card/account was convenient and then try to square it up later.

Staying pretty close to budget for the holidays means that I have been able to MEET MY GOAL of paying off my credit cards, although not my stretch goal of the cards plus a personal loan. On the spreadsheet, this looks like 61.22% progress, since I included stretch in my total debt number. I honestly cannot remember a time in the past 23 years (when I got my first card) that I did not have any credit card debt and I’m still a little incredulous that it’s happened.

December check in… I missed my goal for the year by about $350...Believe me, I have looked over my budget COUNTLESS times trying to figure out how I could juggle things around to just throw enough cash at my debt to hit my goal. But it’s not worth the stress of potentially having something go wrong and not having the money available if I really need it.

I still feel accomplished. I paid off $14,648.66 of debt this year. That’s huge! I paid off my car, a personal loan, and two credit cards. Just two credit cards left, three private student loans, and then my federal student loans. (And then my husband's car and his student loans, but he's not quite ready to join this debt free journey). I’m so ready to start 2020. I'm cautiously optimistic about paying off my credit cards and one (if not two) of my private loans in next year. Great job everyone!

2019 Starting Debt: $45,414.70
December Debt Paid: $2,582.76
2019 Ending Debt: $30,766.04
Debt Smackdown: $14,648.66 / $15,000 (97.66%)

Final 2019 check in! I sent £102.21, which included a random £4 payment when I realised I was a whisker away from hitting 100% on the google sheet goal. 

I joined YNAB in September, but I started my debt free journey in February when I ended up leaving my husband and moving city unexpectedly.  I still keep an Excel spreadsheet in order to trak progress and this is what my debt payoffs have looked like (graph below). On my Excel Spreadsheet I am 46% of my way to my overall debt payoff.

I still have a little under £900 debt remaining, and my original plan was to pay £100 a month until September. I would have been on next years Debt Payoff Challenge. In some bittersweet news, I have found out that my nan has left me some money in her will. Technically its enough to pay it all off, but I'm going to split it 50/50, pay a large chunk of debt off, then spend the rest on some skill classes. So I'll be paying off my remaining debt in March or April. I don't know if thats worth coming onto the 2020 challenge for? I get paid late January anyway so I have time to decide.

I got most of my debt paid off, around 97 percent. The big thing for me is I'm ending 2019 with a plan for 2020. I don't really feel like I've got anything to celebrate. Because of the weight of debt I have for the coming year.

I started this year with some residual debt from the previous year on my transfer cc. Paid it off. My main cc, I kept it at a zero balance all year. Due to some miscalculations this month, Dec was the first time I paid any interest payments in 13months. 

I saved for a known medical expense and I included that in what I considered debt payments. That debt totalled at 20k. I borrowed 13,500k from a no interest balance transfer. By the end of this month, my cc will be cleared and all I will have owing is 12,565.95 as I start the new year. I have planned to pay this off my Aug, as the 0% transfer lasts until Sept 2020.

Originally, I did have a plan to clear a chunk of my LOC. That plan changed when I had to save for the medical and sadly I didn't do much with the LOC. Though I did increase my payments to 200 a month. So I was paying more then the min payment. This new year I will increase payments to include the interest - so my payments will range from 270 - 280.

My medical, was only supposed to be a one time thing. But it seems it wasn't a success, so I have to gather another 20k for the new year. I worked so hard to squirrel the money and have things set up that I wouldn't be in debt payment for too long. I'm worried how I will manage another 20k after I use all my money to pay this debt off. In this case I won't have the extra 7k that I had saved the first time.

Future stresses that does make the closing of this year a bit ugg. So new plans will have to come into place. Thankfully, I have new projects and I've been hired on for some  work. Again more plans. A bit exhausting all this to be quite honest. Times like this I wish I was married to have the additional income :P

Time for my final check-in for 2019 as the new year approaches here in NZ and I've done the last of my spending for December.

I have recently forayed into nYNAB and, suffice to say it's a bit of a learning curve even with having tried it a time or two before. I suspect it may have skewed my figures a little just because of the way it handles CC's, and the fact that I've set up my two other debts as CC's to take advantage of that. Going forward it should be easier for me to see if/how much I've gone forward though, so I'm looking forward to that.

So:

November balances:
Personal loan (interest-free)$1105.00 (now $1055) - this will hit round numbers in January!
Debt to the joint account $1215.20 (now $1141.92) - woohoo - going forwards again, but not as much as I went back last month...
I'm now at  74.28% of my goal. No miracle turned up to get me to 100% sadly, but hey, it's still better than the less than 50% that I managed last year right?

SO I have slightly neglected this forum in regards to this challenge, Oooppss.

However, I have an update to my check ins' I struggled with the Credit card as a I had acquired a new home and mortgage so I had to charge the card a few things to maintain the balance, could not pay it down, But I managed to get rid of one loan in September !

Meaning for the 2019 challenge I have now completed  98.9% of my goal to pay down €10,000!

I want to kill that Bank loan in 2020! can't wait.

September Check in 

Starting balance    |   Ending balance        

€2,413.32  Credit Card €2,435.62 (+22.30)

€14088.81 Bank Personal Loan €13,627.63 (-461.18)

€1,081.71 Credit Union Personal Loan €0 (-1081.71)

October Check in 

Starting balance    |   Ending balance        

€2,435.62  Credit Card €1,980.47 (-455.15)

€13,627.63  Bank Personal Loan €13,162.35 (-465.28)

November Check in 

Starting balance    |   Ending balance        

€1,980.47 Credit Card €2545.47 (+565.00)

€13,162.35 Bank Personal Loan €12,684.91 (-477.44)

December Check in 

Starting balance    |   Ending balance        

€2545.47 Credit Card €2,542.74 (-2.73)

€12,684.91 Bank Personal Loan €12214.34 (-470.57)

I'd forgotten I was participating in this challenge since I 'only' have a car loan and mortgage.  Oops!  Updated the spreadsheet with September through December's numbers.  I paid 110% of my goal.  I decreased the amount I paid on the car loan each month to the minimum because we decided that that money was better spent investing in our kids college funds.  However, we've increased the amount towards mortgage some, which has reduced our payoff at current rates another few months.  All told, we're hoping to pay off our 30 year mortgage in under 23 years.  I'll toast to that!

Back from our holiday travels with the final check-in: $3,310.15. We met our goal, plus a little bit: 104.27%!

After all that's happened this year, we didn't think we could stick with the original goal—job loss, new puppy, water damage, dental work, emergency travel—but pulled it off. My student loans will be toast in a matter of months, and I'm ready for it!

I commenced YNAB in June 2019 with just short of AU$19k in total debt being AU$1,700 owed to my father and the balance of ~AU$17k on a maxed-out credit card.

I set my sights fairly lofty, aiming to pay back the money owed to my dad and half my credit card balance.

As it turned out, my aims were a little too high. I got the small loan paid back in August but the credit card proved harder to budge due to the vagaries of life and my continued adjustment to proper budgeting and the YNAB method. In total, I got AU$4,662.35 paid off, just over 45% of my aim.

I was glad to pay back the loan to my dad. Even though it didn't accrue interest like a credit card debt, I didn't like the feeling of owing a family member money and so wanted that one dealt with quickly.

The still AU$13.5k of credit card debt will be my aim for the 2020 smackdown 🤞

Onwards and upwards!

Final total for 2019 - I paid $20676 towards credit card debt. I don't feel like I went anywhere. I'm sure there's progress in there, but I don't see it yet. Perhaps in 2020....😔