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Two Month Check-in

March 2, 2009 · By Sandy Smith

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Okay so it’s a snowy March 2 and it’s time to check in and see how I’m doing. By the way, where did this record level snow come from in March?! Sheesh. Sorry, I got sidetracked. Digging your way out of 8 inches of snow will do that to you. So anyway it’s time to see how I’m doing.

It looks like I’m down over $4K since I began this process in January. To be fair a good amount of this came from my tax return money. It was the best way that I could use the money without squandering it. I also managed to save money into my emergency fund. This is something that never existed before so every little bit counts and ads up.

You’ll notice that one card has a zero balance. 🙂 I am particularly happy about that one since I have a 10K limit. I am hoping that a $0 balance on that card pushes down my outstanding amount vs. available credit and drive my credit score up. I plan on keeping that card at zero. In fact, they owe me $11 since I sent them enough money to cover accrued interest and it was too much. I should call them and request a check. Either that or pump exactly $11 worth of gas the next time I need to fill up the car. Whichever works.

So I resisted the urge to pay off the personal loan. It has a 3 year term and I am only 3 months into it but I really want to pay that off next and then move on to the car loan. When buying a car, financial the lowest amount that you can possibly afford. After that it’s the smaller of the student loans and the HELOC. I really want to kill off the HELOC as soon as possible. Anyway I am making progress! It’s slow, but it’s happening.

About the Author

Sandy Smith

I started this blog years ago as a way of keeping myself accountable to my own debt reduction plans. Now I'm using this site to help others get out of debt, and learn about personal finance so that they can live their best lives.

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