Our debt is ENOURMOUS! We currently have the highest credit card debt we have EVER had! I’m too insecure to share the amount right now, but I am working up the courage to do so. Having said that, we think we will be able to send between $1100 - $1500 per month towards our credit card. (Varying amounts depending on what other expenses we have each month).

Our billing cycle runs “funny”. We are thinking about asking them to change our closing date and billing cycle but want to pay some down before we do that.

During our last billing cycle, we sent $1270 to our credit card debt. Not too bad, and more than we usually send. If we have to charge on the account for any reason, that is factored into our budget, so this $1270 is what went towards our debt. (Of course, not all of it because we have to pay stupid tax…. Interest.)

During our next billing cycle, we have $1924 earmarked to go towards our debt. I am super happy with this number! This is not a normal month and I’m hoping we are able to meet it! Two things in particular helped bump this month up. First, we have a pause on our daughter’s dance tuition so I’m anticipating not having to pay tuition this month. Secondly, I should receive my “extra pay” paycheck and it should have 2 months of extra pay. I’m anticipating about $400 of extra take home pay.

If we can send north of $1400 per month, I feel like we will start to see some progress. I know it will be slow at first and a lot of that money will get eaten up by interest, especially at the beginning, but we will start to see results.

Because we are irresponsible with credit cards, we have switched to mainly using our debit cards when needed, which as we all know is money we actually have!  We really like to use cash envelopes but fell off the wagon with Covid and banks being closed. We are trying to get back to cash. Last week I went to the bank with my withdrawal slip and my post-it note with my denominations breakdown and the teller actually asked me what I was doing? (She was nice about it, just curious why I wanted so many $20’s, $10’s, and $5’s.)

I always try to remind myself; we didn’t dig our hole in a day, we won’t fill it in a day. We are trying to make small changes that will add up to big rewards later.