PAYING OFF MY HIGHEST INTEREST DEBT IN HALF THE TIME!

After reviewing how much I pay in interest each month on my charge accounts, I decided it was imperative to my financial well being to pay off my debt at a faster pace.  So I'm diverting money earned on Swagbucks (see link in link exchange) towards paying off my highest interest debt.  I'm still making my regular monthly payment, but this month I was able to make two additional $25 payments with cash from Swagbucks.  While that may not sound like much, I used Credit Karma's credit card repayment calculator to determine how much I'd save.  Not only will I pay off this debt in half the time (15 months instead of 30 months)  but I will pay less than half the amount of interest!  

This is my highest interest charge account.  By the time it's paid off, my lowest interest account balance will have been paid down enough that the $170 freed up by paying off the high interest account will rapidly pay off the second account.  After the second account is paid, I'll have $210 extra per month to pay off the third account and then I'll have an extra $270 to rapidly pay down the two remaining accounts.  This is really nothing new, I think others have referred to it as the "credit snowball", but I've modified it by starting with the highest interest debt first, instead of the lowest debt.  I believe that I'll save more in interest that way.  It might take me a few years, but once I've paid off all my debt, I'll have freed up around $600 per month which can then be directed towards investments.

In the mean time, I'll still be reinvesting dividends and adding to my 401k each payday.  So it's not like I'm ignoring my investment accounts.  While I might not see the rapid gains I've seen in dividend income in the past few years, the money I save on interest will more than make up for that.  In the end, the earned income freed up from being debt free will allow me to build my investment portfolio at a much more rapid pace than I ever have before.  I'm pretty excited about the whole plan!  Wish me luck.