The Goat Queen 👏<-- that's me applauding your progress! Way to get after it right away!

The Goat Queen wahoo! That's terrific! Good luck with the baby! I hope everything goes smoothly!

The Goat Queen 10% down only 1% into the new year - that's an amazing starting point! Congratulations on your coming baby and on tackling that debt! :)

auntdar awesome!!! Congrats!!!

auntdar 

And, since you've lived with this person before, you have a good idea of what to expect!  Here's to a good roommate relationship!

auntdar That is super exciting. Congratulations!

just_zoshin We'll be here to root for you through the year! :)

Maroon Mermaid 

Finance is psychological for sure! Saw that we had almost double what I needed in savings to pay off one of the cards, so I raided the 2019 summer camp category, which I'd filled way ahead of schedule and have time to replenish from allocated monthly savings, in order to completely pay off the 2018 summer camp I'd put on a 0 interest CC. This month we've paid off $2401, and have $100.00 each left to pay on two other cards.

I'm debating whether to transfer the $8,900 balance from another credit card onto the 0% interest one that I just paid off. The grace period will be one year from date of transfer. We pay about $130/month in interest, plus $100 to principal. Any purchases made on this card are budgeted for and paid off the following day, so we are not accruing any new debt. I'm not sure I'll be able to pay it off in time. The balance transfer fee is 3%, and the offer is available through April, so I have some time to think about it.

Maroon Mermaid You've made amazing progress already just a few days into the new year! Is it possible to transfer a partial amount to the 0% interest card? That way, you don't have to worry about paying the full amount before the promotional period is up, but you'd still save interest on the amount transferred over. I'm not sure of the details in the offer, but I hope you can use it to your advantage! 

Maroon Mermaid $130 a month in interest is $130/month that could be applied to principle if you do a balance transfer. If you're able to free up enough cards that you can balance transfer back to another promo at the end of the period if you don't pay it off then it might be worth it to just go ahead and do it. I'm sure the $130/month is more than the 3% fee you'll be paying as well...
Strategy is so important when paying off debt!

Faness Maybe! One of the motivating things is only having three CCs left, so splitting the balance from one to go back to four is messing with my head. I'll give myself until April to make the decision, and check in with my husband to get his input as well. Thank you for raising this point!

farfromtheusual That's another factor to consider :) I'm checking on the interest rate after the 0% offer ends to see if it's lower than what we are getting on that card now, in which case it will be a win either way. I'm giving myself till April to make a decision and talk it over with my husband. Thank you for your advice!

Maroon Mermaid It's been a while since I posted and just finished updating the spreadsheet. We've paid off just over 13K (including a new $3K vet debt), which means I met my goal of paying off 10K of our existing credit card debt. 

I ended up transferring the almost 9K to the 0% card, and I'm on track to pay it off the month it's due (Jan. 21). 

I updated my spreadsheet to reflect we expect to hit 20K paid off by the end of 2020. This sounds great in theory, but we deliberately added a 25K HELOC to our balance sheet.

This is what debts/savings looks like for us right now:

Debts:

-3300 on a 0% card expiring 11/20, scheduled to be paid off on 10/20

-8100 on a 0% card expiring 01/21, scheduled to be paid off on 01/21

-11500 on a 19% card (paying this off will be my 2021 debt smackdown goal)

-24300 HELOC (paying 25-50% off on this will be part of my 2021 debt smackdown goal)

Savings:

6000 emergency fund (just about one month's expenses, including 'electives', my goal is to increase this to 18000 next year)

500 health/prescriptions sinking fund--fully funded

500 car sinking fund--fully funded

Working on fully funding the rest of 2020 birthdays & holidays and taxes for next year.

Accomplishments so far:

Fully funded and paid off 4000 tax bill

All the savings above

Paid off 3000 of new debt (cat needed surgery)

Paid off 10000 (including interest) of existing debts

Saved 15000 to supplement HELOC (our renovation quote came in at 33000, we decided to get a 25000 HELOC, and fund the rest ourselves. I added the other 7000 to make it an even 40000 in the remodel category for my peace of mind). Whatever doesn't get spent from this fund will be moved to savings.

What a year. All these wins are a balm for my mental health, as I was wondering how well we'd done.

Maroon Mermaid sometimes, it actually is better to look at the numbers, because they don't turn out to be as bad as we fear! Way to go, those are some huge accomplishments in a year full of unexpected things!

farfromtheusual Thank you! I appreciate your words!

Ica Paige 

I love the concept of a stretch goal for debt! Thank you for inspiring me to add one of my own. 

Hi Coral Mare !

It's been mentioned in the thread above, but undebt.it is a great way to list all your debts. It even syncs with YNAB so you can track your payments, compare payoff approaches and more.

You've got this! :)

Coral Mare I'm also starting the year out with a debt load over $100,000 (around $111,000) and I'm so excited to get below that 100K mark this year! When I add our mortgage to the mix I start to get heart palpations. Good luck to you--we've got this! :-)

Coral Mare Week-Later Me had to check the rationale for my seemingly random payoff goal.  OH, it was go get under $75k!  Now I remember.  

Math-wise, as long as I can pay off 8.3% of the goal each month, I'll hit the annual goal. Rocking on...

Coral Mare In case Future Me loses her paper list o'debts, here's what created the starting total:

Truck Loan ---- $46,126.76 (4.5% interest; paying $182.50 each Monday)

Car Loan------- $27,817.29 (0.9% interest; paying $575 each month)

Camper Loan - $32,240.72 (7% interest; paying $425 on the 2nd and sending as big a snowball as can be gathered on the 3rd.  The bank assured me that this is the best way to send the max to principal given the parameters of their system.)

When the camper loan's balance is $18,332.30, it'll be 60% paid with 40% of the starting balance to go.  That would be a cool secondary goal to hit this year.

Based on feedback and info from the Debt Bootcamp, I'm also challenging myself to fund all monthly True Expense goals prior to the building of the snowball.  Let's see how that works out!

Coral Mare February Check-In

Truck Loan & Car Loan have been sent their planned payments.  Camper's balance after tax refund & aggressive snowball attack:  $23,150.89.  True Expense funding is rocking along.  

Interesting twist:  February's work schedule has been more wonky than usual.  Depending on the fallout from the changes, we may end up with extra to send in March.

Cyan Violin The upside with a stretch goal is that even if you don't fully reach it, you'll still be further ahead than where you started! Congratulations on paying off your car and here's to tackling those student loans (that's my goal for this year, as well)! :)

spyral Big and stubborn debts are the worst (hello, student loans), but you've got this! That credit card will be gone before you know it! :)

Faness Reading these forums I am so glad to have gone through the Australian University system at a time of low fees (2002-06) and government loans indexed only for inflation. I paid mine back in 2010 🤗

All debt since that is just my fault 😂

spyral Off to a slow start in January. Only $248.41 paid off. Plenty of room for improvement 😬

spyral Any start is a Good start here! Even if it's a smaller step than you had hoped for, it's still a step in the right direction! :)

spyral Gosh, didn't realise it had been January when I last posted an update!

No doubt 2020 is proving very challenging for many people, especially on the debt paydown front. I count myself very lucky that I have stable employment through all of this.

That, combined with a huge reduction in the amount of going out and socialising has allowed me to really get stuck in to debt reduction.

I started the year with a goal of paying off AUD$15,176.87 in debt which was the combined total of two credit cards, and two line of credit type accounts (Afterpay, Zippay - not sure how well known these are in the US and elsewhere). 

As of June - so half way through the year - if have paid off AUD$6,500.71 which is 43% of the debt. However, the really positive thing from my point of view is that in the second quarter of the year I paid off AUD$,4892.84 which was 32.2% of my debt total.

On current projections, I will clear my debt in the first half of November and I couldn't be happier about this! At the start of the year, clearing my full debt in 12 months felt and seemed like a stretch. It is odd in one sense that the pandemic is probably going to be the thing that really gets me over the line with my goal, but I will take it.

I am certainly thinking of, and wishing the best, for all those who have been less fortunate in their financial and health circumstances than me over the last few months.

spyral Wow! Way to go! My BF and I were talking about that last night as well, the fact that we are spending SO much less going out than we were before, and we never really thought that was possible as easily as we have managed it when the world decided to shut down. Interesting how a little perspective can change everything!

spyral End of year, end of debt!! The debt I carried over from the end of my marriage (2017) is finally gone. At one point it felt like I would carry it forever, but with hard work, hard decisions and a bit of good fortune I got there.

Now time to transfer over to the Savings challenge :)

All the best to all the YNABers out there for 2021 and beyond!

spyral WOW! Congrats!! Enjoy the savings challenge!!

spyral Amazing!! Congratulations!

Keith Borders I love your burn down chart (+1 for visuals)! I can't wait to see the updates as we make it through the year!

Purple Goldfish Congratulations on the new addition to your family and on paying off that student loan! If anyone asks how much debt you paid off in 2020, I hope you'll include it, too! (All debt amounts paid off are progress!)

Gazelle Intensity I'm doing Debt Bootcamp, too!

I'm also going through the same mental gymnastics regarding true expenses vs debt, but I keep landing on continuing to fully fund my true expenses each month, and throwing leftovers (and any found money) at debt. It's only been a couple months, but it seems to be working out so far!

I wish you the very best of luck in 2020!

Krys  Gazelle Intensity That's where I am too. I want to have a buffer in a couple of months so that I won't pay any bank fees. I know I could switch banks and looked into it, but it's A LOT of work with all my PAPs coming out and frankly the competitor doesn't have the best customer service. So once my buffer is in place, then I will save $12/month & apply that to my debt snowball. I added a few lines under my debt payment for other areas that I have saved money and could add that to the snowball. I agree with not wanting to get into debt and just want my buffers built up in case something happens. Strike action is very likely this month at work unfortunately. 

Hi Gazelle Intensity !

We have an 8-part series on Mastering A Variable Income that you might find helpful! I'll leave the links below in case you want to take a look. :)

Part 1: You Can Budget with a Variable Income lets you know that it's not only possible to budget with variable income, but it will help you plan for the future, and even out your various seasons of income!

Part 2: How to Answer the Critical, "Can I Afford it" Question 

Part 3: Beware the Dangers of Forecasting.

Part 4: Embrace Your True Expenses 

Part 5: Learn to Expect the Unexpected 

Part 6: Change your Mind, Change your Budget. 

Part 7: The Importance of Aging Your Money 

Part 8: No More Excuses 

Faness Awesome! Thanks. I will definitely check this out!

Gazelle Intensity if you are new to YNAB give yourself some time before you make those big decisions about paying of chunks of debt. I've made the mistake of getting a bit too excited, and then the end result is that I slide backwards again when I can't keep up with whatever happens. This is especially true if the income varies.
I've figured out quite a few tricks to dealing with that as my small business income varies wildly, too, so feel free to shoot me a message if you want to chat about how to cope with it.

Rhei You never know when their rates may change, so paying off your CCs is a great idea. 

Rhei Is the 0% interest for an indefinite amount of time? Debt is debt, but 0% interest debt is slightly less bad debt. ;)

 Purple Foal Faness It's 0% "indefinitely" thanks to the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA). You're both right in the sense that it's debt, but I have a hard time throwing more money at it since I can gain more in retirement by growing my money now in IRA/TSP.

I've actually been throwing more money at the Auto Loan to get ahead on that since it actually racks up interest, and I'm 3 months ahead in payments there.

Slate Blue Storm Congratulations on your progress so far! $11,000 is a number to be proud of and it'll only grow in 2020. 

We're big on budgeting for priorities, so if paying off the HELOC is a priority, then go for it! :)

Slate Blue Storm 

Personal finance is just that, personal.  What works for Dave won't work for everyone else and each of us have our own priorities that might not line up with the 'rules' of any one diet, financial or food ; )  Twinkies all day every day is a bad idea, but barring gluten issues/diabetes, etc, one twinkie once a week of overall healthy eating is fine.  Same with paying down HELOC when other things might be a better choice according to Dave Ramsey.

Technicolor Cheetah I agree.  We've snowballed lots of things per Dave Ramsey, just to free up mental clutter and to try to maximize medical tax deductions.  Now, though, that variable interest rate on the HELOC is killing my progress.  It has got to go!!!

Tan Banjo (c031bfdaebb1) January completed. 🙌🙌. For the first time ever being aware of all my debt made me impatient to be paid, not to go out or do dinners or anything. Just wanted to be in a position to make a payment on the debts. Was a slightly weird feeling.

I'm focusing on paying off the smaller debts with the higher interest rates first but can't wait until those go away and I can start paying off the principal on my land loan.

Tan Banjo (c031bfdaebb1) Yes! Be weird and different from the rest of the herd in debt and working their whole life without goals. You're in good company. I've been focusing on my debt, buffer, and bracing for the strike situation at work. I have told a few people that I'm not spending any money going out until this is all over. Didn't feel like I'm missing out. There's lots of other free things to do and great food to make at home. Stay focused on your goals! :)

Tan Banjo (c031bfdaebb1) February locked down. Happy to keep the momentum going and seeing my net worth go up. For me it means that in future when I go on trips, when I plan things it won't have any guilt attached because I'll know that I can afford what I am doing

Tan Banjo (c031bfdaebb1) 📅March part 1 check in: Always thankful for bonuses. Was a good chunk this year and thought initially that I would throw it all at debt. Extremely happy that I listened to the class on creating a Debt Paydown plan and realised that it's all good to do a lumpsum but if that just means that I am going to have to dip back into debt for regular expenses then no bueno. ❌❌ I was still able to pay off the credit card that charged me the highest interest ✅👍🏾but instead of completely paying off another one and then being cash strapped for the month I fully funded my categories. This means when I get my regular pay I don't have to worry about the April bills as money is already set aside for them 🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾. That way I may even be able to do another payment while funding May bills (probably not but I'm cautiously optimistic - 🥂to dreaming). So as of today I am 25.22% closer to my goal, 1 credit card down, 1 to go, additional payment made on 1 personal loan with the other regular payments fully funded. There is definitely a bit of light coming ahead (may it not be a train🚂)

Tan Banjo (c031bfdaebb1) That sounds like an excellent plan, and good job for keeping some cash on hand for further debt prevention.  I used to do that all the time, put all my money down on debt and then have nothing left over and have to start whipping out the CC again.  I got my bonus this month, too, but keeping some back as a hedge against the spending we have to do...  We're in the process of moving, so everything is fluid.  Paying down one rent deposit, hoping to get our current deposit back, all the expenses of moving, yada yada.  Keep up the good work!

Tan Banjo (c031bfdaebb1) we have a category called extra debt payment that we allocate additional income to as it comes in.  It’s nice to see it accumulate. But that also lets us be thoughtful and intentional with that money. We have a situation that happens with our payroll every year around August where our annual unemployment insurance and Canada Pension (our version of social security) contributions max out for the year. That means each paycheque after that is more. We take that additional amount and park it in that extra payment category and then once everything in the year has been dealt with, we take that and put it on debt. That also makes sure we don’t end up with lifestyle creep when those cheques drop back down in January. 

MXMOM I like the idea of a category for extra debt payments. That way it can be separate from regular savings but still mean that I retain some optionality in case of a difficult season. Will definitely be adding this to my budget. Thank you for the idea.

Max Green Yeah. I have done like you said before and it always makes me lose momentum when I feel myself slipping back into a debt that I had paid off. 🤞🏾🤞🏾that everything with the move goes smoothly. I won't relay all my horror stories with deposits.

Tan Banjo (c031bfdaebb1) We do it like Tan Banjo (c031bfdaebb1) as well. Have a category called:

💸DEBT fund

Emoji use is very important and we throw all sorts of bits into there. Towards the end of the month we start looking at the categories we haven't spent much on and we toss more into it. It's all very exciting! You are doing great! 

Tan Banjo (c031bfdaebb1) April Check In: This has definitely been a month to be thankful. I've been able to make an additional $1,700 payment on one of my personal loans while maintaining a 1 month buffer for my age of money. The times have definitely been teaching me how important it is to manage my debt well but also have an emergency fund for the things that can and will go wrong. Onwards and upwards to May.

Spider Plant First payment officially has gone through. I do keep some spreadsheets of my loans, and have for the last couple of years. Have to admit that one nice thing about them is seeing that bit by bit, the interest payment gets steadily lower over time. It's definitely been more dramatic since I started getting serious about paying these down, but seriously: last year my smaller loan was costing me ~$36/month in interest, and this month it's down to $27 in interest. On the bigger loan, it was ~$170/month in interest, then down to $104 with the refinance, and this month it's now down to $92. It's really, really nice to see more and more go to principal each month.

Spider Plant I hadn't thought of separating this information out until now, so thank you! I have several student loans (the ones with the smallest balances happen to have the highest interest rates), and paying off one of them saved me $9/month in interest.

Faness Yay! Glad to hear it and yay for victories in saving on interest! It was painful at first, but it made me understand very quickly why my loan balances didn't seem to change much early on (once I started trying to make sense of them and not just put minimum payments toward them). I was paying  ~$3,500 a year toward one loan and barely making a dent, then discovered that just $1,000 or so of that was going toward principal each year. I did some quick math and discovered that sure, it was a 6.625% interest rate on the loan, but over 70% of every payment was going towards interest. 😮

Spider Plant I know that's straight forward math, but it seems so deceptive. When explaining a loan to students, "6.625%" doesn't sound like the thousands in interest it becomes or 70% of a payment! 😰

Faness Right? It's been 10 years now since I did it, but the exit counseling at the time basically said "Here's how to make your payment, it's important to pay on time each month" and that was basically that. I feel like loan counseling should be much more thorough and also *not* taught by any institutions which have vested financial interests in the sweet sweet interest payments they'll be getting for years to come (I sure wish my high yield savings yielded even close to the interest rates these loans command...).

Spider Plant Without getting on a soap box so early this morning, I'd love to see a real overhaul to financial education. My high school had Home Economics, but so many schools don't even mention a checkbook nowadays. 😥

I wish I could take even half of one of my student loan rates as an interest rate for my checking account. 

Faness I'm incredibly grateful to you and your YNAB colleagues for all your work and free education! I was a reader of the blog for quite a while before finally hopping onboard to becoming a user, and the blog and the video classes and recordings, and now these forums, are amazing resources for lots of us! Even those of us like me who thought we were savvy with money but whose eyes were very much opened in a good way once YNAB started to click.

Spider Plant Second payment just cleared the bank for the bigger loan, woohoo! Nice to add that to the spreadsheet, and here's to keeping up the momentum!

Spider Plant Reading this made my night! I shared this with the rest of the team because comments like this make even the uphill days glorious, so thank you! :)

Purple Butterfly Oops 🤪 forgot that I claimed line 125

Purple Butterfly Congratulations on your upcoming nuptials! I'm wishing you peace, tranquility and of course fun, on what can be a very wild day. :)

Maroon Ink Yay for the progress made last year and bigger yay for being debt free in the coming year! :)

Lavender Cobra It's impressive that you were able to make less but still pay more towards those debts! Great job! I can't wait to see what you manage in 2020! :)

Lavender Cobra LAVENDER COBRA (Self bookmark) Forgot to check in the thread for February and March, but I updated the spreadsheet..... I guess I'm not technically late for March.  

As of today, I have $17,064 in debt remaining. It's $3,945 in student loans and $13,119 for car note. 

I was really hoping to payoff SL by May and the car by September. With all the craziness, I've shifted my focus to the emergency savings.  My car is priced at 2.09% so I'm not terribly worried about it going out longer. 

Lavender Cobra April 2020 Check-In. I was able to make an extra $675 payment towards my student loan on 3/31. It wasn't included in my March check-in so I'm including it here.  I paid my normal principal balance for student loan and car notes this month. I think next month I'll be able to pay off my MBA after all (sadly my trip to Greece was cancelled, but now I've put it towards my EF). Woohoo! 

Debts as of 4/20/2020

Student Loan: $2,634.58

Car: $12,740.65

Total: $15,375.23

:) 

Lavender Cobra 

Early May Check-In. I paid $1,868.49 yesterday. Expect to pay off the rest of my student loan by end of this month. Woohoo! 

Debt Recap: 

Payment: $1,868.49

New Student Loan Balance: $1,197

New Auto Loan Balance: $12,310

New Total: $13,509