by Hope
Things are still pretty dire. I am still significantly behind on several “four walls” bills. So there are debt payments that are just not getting paid.
Figured I would get that out of the way, so you wouldn’t wonder why some of these debt numbers are going up!
| Debt Description | October, 2023 Total | Interest Rate | Minimum Payment | Paid This Month | Current Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Personal Loan #1 | $2,500 | 0% | 6 months to pay | $2,500 | |
| Personal Loan #2 | $2,500 | 0% | 6 months to pay | $2,500 | |
| CC – AMEX | $894 | 29.24% | $93 | $954 | |
| CC – Wander | $1,630 | 29.24% | $124 | $1,834 | |
| CC – USAA | $5,000 | 19.15% | $135 | $131 | $5,190 |
| CC – Amazon | $1,497 | 29.99% | $53 | $55 | $1,519 |
| CC – Sams | $1,106 | *29.99% | *$40 | $40 | $1,113 |
| CC – Frontier | $3,857 | 29.99% | $338 | $170 | $3,994 |
| Car Loan | $19,581 | 12.69% | $500 | $563 | $19,581 |
| Student Loans | $22,121 | 2.875% | $306 | Deferred until Dec, 2023 | $22,186 |
| CC – Apple** | $500 | $500 | $497 | ||
| Total | $61,186 | $61,868 |
A couple of notes:
*The website to get my statement and these details was not available so these are estimates.
**I pay this CC off every month and reuse. This and the USAA CC will be left open. But the goal is to pay off and close all other lines of credit.
Catching Up
On the flip side of that, I have contracted out enough work to pay the bills through the end of January. Most of these are one off projects. My regular monthly intake has increased from the $2,200 per month from my part time job to around $2,700. (I will need to allocate some of this additional income to self-employment taxes.)
I am hoping to be caught up with everything by mid-December. This really depends on how timely I will receive payments for these projects. And I’m hoping to resume saving with the $200 from my part time job. I will definitely feel more comfortable when I have some sort of emergency fund again.
I continue to literally pound the pavement on a daily basis. Hitting up and few brick and mortar stores and introducing myself and dropping off a flyer details my service offerings from web design to social media management and everything in between.
Hope is a digital marketing manager and foster/adoptive single mom to five kids. She has run her own consulting company for over 15 years and took a leap of faith returning to the corporate world in 2021 to a job and team she loves! Hope began sharing her journey with the BAD community in the Spring of 2015 and feels like she has finally mastered the balance between family first and wise financial decisions.
