M K Congrats! That is awesome!

M K Congratulations! 

Stacy C  Line 108

Stacy C Yes! You can do it!

Stacy C Update: My arch nemesis card is my husband's Toys R US card, now Synchrony. It's the only card he uses. At the beginning of 2019 it was near it's limit of 8K. In January I paid $1530 towards it, Great right? No...He added $300 since then plus $150 in interest. Current balance 6200 after a $497 payment this morning. Slow going.  

Stacy C I feel your pain, my BF is doing the same thing. :( We'll get there, despite them!

Stacy C February Check in - Paid $2076.54 to hubby's credit cards. Finally have Toys R US under $6K!! 

I spent $500 less on Amazon in February!!! Spent $250 less on eating out. $250 less on groceries. Unfortunately the $1000 I save ended up going towards the car repairs I was moaning about. Le Sigh!!

Stacy C March check in - $1695.08 paid towards hubby debt. Toys R Us in no longer under 6K...I hate that card. I don't think the spread sheet is updating correctly. The % never changes no matter what I add. 

Stacy C sorry about the Toys R Us card...  that doesn't sound like a happy situation. 

I did fix your line on the spreadsheet though!

Stacy C April check-in $1499.55 paid on hubby's credit cards this month. Not as much as I'd like, but I had other expenses as well. Still on schedule to pay off May's best buy promo!! Plan to pay it May 10. 

Jared I'm looking at the spreadsheet; did you make a payment or did you add to your debt? The negative in front of the payment makes it look like you added to your debt, and I just want to make sure you're tracking correctly. :)

Jared Just a minor tip that a good friend of mine who is very financially savvy gave me years ago. If someone (mostly an institution, not a personal friend/family member) is willing to loan you money "for free" then don't worry about paying it off any faster than you absolutely have to.
So that credit card that you have until November before interest kicks in, just divide the total by the number of months that are available to you at zero % interest, and only pay that amount each month.
That gives you breathing room to pay off the family member faster, or to apply towards some buffer because with a move and a wedding there will be unexpected expenses cropping up for sure.
Just a little tip, take it or leave it. It's probably not worth 2 cents anyway. 😉

imaginaryannie Yes. I shouldn't have filled in this month's yet but I had it open so I threw in the numbers up to that point. My goal is to get off of CC spending. I'm not, technically, on the CC float but I'm not far because I'm cash poor/investment rich. So I set this year's challeng up (for myself) to be to have $0 in all CC spending, CC debt (an actual debt, 0% though), and a personal loan (also 0%) by the end of the year. Freeing myself from that CC debt will make it much easier to hit this goal (it's a constant outflow each month that prevents me from saving any money).

I do know that a positive number should normally be used (if debt goes down), but at the point I added that one it was up for the month (CC spending but no CC payments yet).

farfromtheusual That's what I've done. $500/month will have it paid off in November. I'll actually make the last payment in October but that's because the deadline for the 0% is early November (2nd or 3rd) and the CC payment date is mid-month. So just to ensure the last payment gets processed in time I'll pay it off in October.

But that's a good point. I probably won't put the bonus money into it right away, if I do at all. I need my cash buffer to get a bit bigger. I'm almost to net worth $0 (cash and debt considered only, not retirement and savings) after my next paycheck so that'll be a nice change to see (haven't been there for a while, long distance relationships are expensive and I stopped tracking my spending properly a couple years ago, which is where the CC debt came from).

Jared that's terrific! I'm SOOOOO close to the 0 net worth, too, and I can't wait to see that number in the black consistently. Then it will be amazing when there's NO debt listed at all! I'll get there eventually, but the lesson of not paying anyone who wasn't charging me for the privilege of holding money for me was a big help! I will admit I haven't paid off all of the zero balance transfers that I've made over the years, but often it's possible to find another offer somewhere and roll it back over again. I don't like doing that, but it saves money when you can't quite get the debt paid off.

That was supposed to be "retirement and investments", savings are definitely being counted in YNAB. Basically, I'm not counting non-cash assets because it's not practical to sell them (a car or house, for instance) or their return rate is too high to be worth selling yet. Bonds and things with a lower return rate, I am counting. But they also have a strictly increasing (or steady) value compared to stocks.

I use a separate accounting tool to keep track of this full picture of my finances though (ledger-cli).

Slight change, dropping off the regular spending CCs. I'm spending too much money each month on the wedding that goes to those that my CC balances aren't dropping (though I'm still paying them off each month). So here are the two debt accounts:

    DEC18     JAN19
CC  5500.00   5000.00
PL  7300.00   6900.00
=====================
   12800.00  11900.00

$900 off the debts.

    DEC18     JAN19     FEB19
CC  5500.00   5000.00   4500.00
PL  7300.00   6900.00   6500.00
===============================
   12800.00  11900.00  11000.00

Kombucha Kid I don't have any wisdom to share but wanted to give you a fist bump of solidarity about looking at other people's goals and being like 'why can't I do that too?'. It is so, so true that we don't know anyone else's circumstances. Maybe their incredibly impressive 20k a year towards debt is merely a modest 1% of their take-home pay. Who knows?

Also, no shame, no despair. Things change, circumstances change, priorities change- the only thing you can do is deal with where you are at the time.  You don't know what you don't know and when you do find out some information you didn't know previously (such as total monthly income), the best thing you can do is be gentle and allow yourself the flexibility to adjust.

Kombucha Kid 

Consider my "like" a fistbump of support.  Kudos for keeping it real and adjusting for actual numbers. That is going to be far more successful than trying to keep pace with someone else's life. Go you.

Kombucha Kid you should be proud, not ashamed.  You made a choice based on information that has changed. But you were wise enough to adjust your goal based on this new info.

YNAB will let you continue to make wise decisions about your spending. It will also help you spot when other adjustments  are needed as things change  throughout the year.

You've got this! 

Kombucha Kid adding another fit bump of support to you. We can only do what we can do with what we have in the moment. That includes knowledge and resources. And I agree, I look at some people's goals and thing, geez, I may not even be able to completely pay off my tiny debt amount of $1700. But that's actually a pretty hefty chunk of what I bring home annually from my part time job that has to cover these bills. Beating yourself up does no good, and only drags you down further, which means you won't accomplish what you set out to do anyway!
Keep chipping away and do what you can! Getting rid of any of it is an accomplishment!

Kombucha Kid that's okay. I listed a pretty ambitious debt paydown goal, since I was 98% sure I would be offered one of two jobs last week. Unfortunately, no job offer. I'm not sure when I'll get a job now, no clue what the pay will be, and my husband's job isn't enough to meet my goal. So I very likely may be adjusting my goal soon as well, unless I get an offer in the next week or so. :(

Kombucha Kid - No shame in adjusting and still managing to pay towards your debt.  You're still able to make payments and make a dent. Bravo to you!

  Tishy Wishy Magenta_sloth. 1  farfromtheusual MartyH HappyDance Violet Drill Too many kind words! You're all right - adjusting course isn't something to be ashamed of. I think I've tied my head into knots over being judged for changing my plan in the past. It's a nice change of pace to instead be supported for the honesty and humility it takes to say, "well, that was wrong."

Kombucha Kid You can do it! There is no shame in adapting the plan! The shame would be deciding you just wouldn't try, period. You got this.

Kombucha Kid Be proud of what you've accomplished so far, the fact you have a plan based in facts, and the flexibility to make your budget work for you. Also, you have a plan that will bring you freedom by being debt free in under 18 months - that's huge! One month at a time, and best of luck on meeting all of your goals!

Kombucha Kid Good for you for adjusting based on your situation - this will make your journey sustainable and not just a new year's resolution that goes out the window in Feb. Your debt free journey is just that, yours. Don't compare yourself to anyone else. We are all working toward the same goal and I'm here to cheer you on! 

Kombucha Kid I was lamenting a similar issue to a friend, and they gave me a bit of perspective that helped... instead of thinking of things as success/failure, I've now shifted into Research and Development. I just look at everything as R&D and that takes a lot of pressure off of me and the situation if it doesn't turn out quite like I expected. I still bump up against that failure thing every now and then, but it's a little easier than it used to be!