Monday, July 11, 2016

MAKING PROGRESS ON DEBT REDUCTION!

You've heard the expression, "Where there's a will, there's a way."  I wrote in a post a while back about my plan to attack my remaining debt, since eliminating debt would free up a tremendous amount of cash to go towards investing.  To realize how impossible this task seemed in my case you'd have to understand that my earned income is barely larger than my expenses each month.  Yet what seemed nearly impossible has proven to be quite possible and I'm happy to report, for the month of July, I was able to reduce my total remaining debt by 1.5%!  While that might not seem like much, it's way better than watching it go up or remain the same every month.  It has also motivated me to seek out more creative ways to show an even larger reduction in the month of August.  

I'm thinking about some side gigs to my regular job, not a second job mind you, but other means of earning extra cash to put directly towards debt reduction.  I could always do some buying and selling on Craigslist or ebay, which I've done before.  My work schedule won't allow for a flea market booth like I ran a couple of summers back, but a yard sale is not out of the question.  Maybe do some window cleaning or carpet cleaning jobs on the side.  I could always divert dividend income from my taxable account towards paying off debt, but I really want to keep my investment accounts growing, so that's not a likely option.  I'm getting my cash reserves in savings and checking built up, so it might be possible in the near future to make a lump sum payment from these accounts.  Just want to make sure I have sufficient reserves in case of emergencies.  

The best thing about the progress I've made on reducing my debt in June and July is the biggest reductions are in my higher interest accounts.  Right now I'm only using my lowest interest credit card and I'm being as stingy as possible with that.  If my finances continue to improve as they have since the beginning of the year, I should be able to stop using all charge accounts entirely.  My sister is very good with credit cards.  She uses her rewards cards for everything, but she pays the balance in full each month.  That is my ideal goal.  To be able to use my rewards cards and pay the balance in full every month.  Freedom from monthly payments will be the ultimate prize here.  Right now I have a total of 6 charge accounts I'm making monthly payments on.  It will be most gratifying to watch the payments disappear as each account is paid off.  The good news is 4 of the 6 are small balances, so they'll be gone pretty fast and I'll be able to divert the savings toward reducing the 2 highest balances.  

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