How to ‘Find’ More Money to Pay Down Loans
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Time for an update on our student loan project!
May was great with cash only lunch challenge I had with myself. I managed to cut my eating out budget by more than half. I had so much fun doing it, I'm continuing it this month and beyond.
Scheduling Regular and Bonus Payments
Since we've been paying extra with our loans it has pushed pay the due date for the next payments.
Right now, according to the Department of Education's website, our next payment does have to be made until the beginning of 2013.
To keep focused, we went ahead and added student loans to our bill payment schedule.
Cutting Back Expenses & Building Income
Based on how May went, I've adjusted my food budget for eating out to reduce it in half and now have another set of payments sent out.
For My Financial Reviews, I earned a bit of money from writing, so now that the payment has been deposited, I'll schedule another payment.
Timing the Student Loan Payments
One change I've made is that extra income payments won't be sent out as soon as they come in.
Instead I'll schedule the payments for either 15th or end of the end of month.
It's easier for me to keep track of everything. I'll transfer the money immediately to the checking account, so I can get the bill payment out as soon as I need to.
It's my hope to have payments made 3x/month and to get this balance down by a few thousand this year.
I'd love for us to knock another debt off the list and then focus our attention on other foals that we have.
I'm so happy things are picking and I hope the momentum continues for the rest of the year!
Thoughts on Paying Down Debt
I’d love to hear from you about your financial goals this year. How many of you are paying down debt? How is it going so far? What has been the biggest challenge?
We are paying down a car loan debt, and plan to pay about 3x the monthly minimum payment every month. This should have our 66 month loan paid off no later than 18 months from now. I hope that we can pay even more because it would be nice to get it done by the end of this year. I might consider doing some overtime to increase the payments, but time away from family is already more than I would like, so we will see.
Great job Adam on the car loan! I love how you’re working hard, but your line in the sand is spending with family. I’m glad you’ve found a system that is working for you.
Wow! It sounds like you are really getting somewhere on the debt payments! How great it must feel to be heading in the right direction and really getting somewhere. And by making extra payments, and working it right into your billing process, you can save thousands on interest! I am working on paying off student debt right now and still figuring out all the details. I would love to be able to pay off my debt in five years, rather than the ten they allow. I’m starting off by making extra payments and paying off the ones with the highest interest first. We’ll see how this goes!
hope you reach your goal with student loans Deborah. We’re looking forward to getting rid of the one we have too!
We paid off our last credit card this year, and it felt great!
Congrats Chirsta!
Our biggest goal for this year is to have $60,000 saved in cash by September and another $10,000 put into our Roth IRA’s by the end of the year. It’s harder than we thought. Mr. BFS is starting a part-time job at a bowling alley to help and I am trying to finish an ebook I have been working on for more than a year, lol.
Great job!
Debt is so cheap now…. my fuel for paying down debt has faded. Instead, I’ve used my liquidity to invest. S
We’re still investing – we don’t want to ignore that aspect of our finances. We’re just a bit conservative and want to get some of our debt removed.