It's too embarrassing to tell you how much credit card debt I had at the beginning of the year, but let's just say that it was equivalent to about 50% of my yearly income. In order to pay off half of it throughout the year, I would need to pay well over a $1000 per month and stop using my credit cards completely. The $1000 per month was easy because I already had scheduled monthly payments of $500 on autopay for both cards. It was the not using the cards that was the killer. It is really unrealistic to say that I'm not going to use my credit card, because of where I live. Much of my shopping is done online and I use my Alaska Air credit card for just about everything so that I can accumulate milage points for free flights later.
Anyhow...with my scheduled $1000 per month, plus about other 400-500 a month extra to cover my monthly spending, a few thousand from my tax refund, another couple thousand from my pfd checks, and the use of some of my savings...I was able to pay down my credit card debt by nearly 60%!!!
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4 comments:
Congratulations! Wow, that is a big deal. My poor hubby keeps trying to pay ours off but the car breaks down and then the dog got sick - well, you know how it goes.
Congrats to you for paying down your credit card debt. When I married my husband (nearly 20 years ago) he had quite a bit of credit card debt. I gradually got him out of it and told him we would never be in CC debt again. Fortunately, we've been able to keep that vow. We do use our AK Airlines CC for the miles, but pay it off every month. What a liberating feeling to not owe anyone (but the mortgage people) money! Good for you for paying off as much as you did, and continued good luck in getting them totally paid off!
Thanks for the encouragement, ladies!!!
Congratulations, Alisha! Good thing that you have sufficient financial resources to pay off your bills, because the sooner you will be able to pay off all your credits, the lower the interest and penalty will be. Anyway, I see no problem in using credit cards and all other loans as long as you have self-discipline. Creating a budget will help you get out and stay out of debt and cutting your spending will help you save for good!
Roslyn Rosecrans
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