September 2016 Snowflaking

Happy September! Here we go!

Navient Minimum Payment & Additional Payment

Mintly Navient Loans

$81.13 – minimum payment we sent
- 73% – amount that went to principal (last month: 72%)
- 27% – amount that went to interest (last month: 28%)
$35 – extra sent to Navient (this is a budgeted amount we send to keep our payment to Navient the same as it was before they lowered my minimum payment)
- 98% – amount that went to principal*
- 2% – amount that went to interest
$9,127.45 – balance (last month: $9,231.26)

*So, funny story – apparently the minimum payment that Navient is now asking me to pay ($81.13) doesn’t actually cover the entire interest that is due, so even when I make my additional payment of $35, there’s still interest to pay! The other option is that somehow the payment isn’t going through quickly enough and interest has already accrued since the minimum payment. However, in August when I did this same process, I paid additional payment the SAME DAY and was still charged interest (which, honestly, I did not note because it was so weird… but now it’s a thing, apparently).

Citibank Card (no-interest until August 2017)

$1,157.75 – payment we sent
$5,377.62 – balance (last month: $6,634.37)

Snowflaking/Savings Breakdown: $2,022.68 (half sent to debt, half put into savings)

$56 – Swagbucks (<– referral link)
$44.41 – money that I was supposed to send to the dentist bill from our sinking fund but I never transferred the money to our checking account… and so it gets to be put into our savings/debt eradication!
$50 – American Express Dollars
$2,022.68 – money from our paychecks that was budgeted for savings/debt eradication
$69 – H’s side hustle
$13.30 – Pact app

Current total debt: $14,505.08 (last month: $15,865.63)

Citibank (H’s loans): $5,377.62
Navient (my loans): $9,127.45

Reflection:

I feel like there are a hella lotta goals in my life (well, my husband’s, daughter’s, and my lives, that is) and I’m getting overwhelmed with trying to achieve all of the goals. How strong is a goal of buying a house this year? How strong is our goal to pay off our debt as soon as possible? Some goals HAVE to take precedence or it takes forever to achieve them (witness our slowly growing savings fund and our slowly diminishing debt). I know we could do one or the other a lot more quickly if we could focus everything on one goal, but it’s difficult when you don’t know when the right house might come on the market. We are definitely in a period of transition, and at some point, either a house will show up and be THE ONE or we will get our debt paid off and also have a good sizable chunk of cash for aiding in a house purchase. It’s just hard to see things moving so slooooowly now. If I recognize that period of transition though, maybe I can be a turtle, if it means we win the race!

August 2016 Wrap Up

Welcome!

Each month I review how we did on our budget, whether we made our snowflaking goal, and how much we brought in consigning. That debt is going DOWN.

August 2016 Budget Recap – How We Did

august 2016.png

The Debt Eradication line looks like nothing happened there, but that’s just because halfway through the month, I decided that I’d just do one big payment to the Citi card, as there’s no reason to pay a minimum payment and then do a big payment after the minimum payment is processed (we do that when our balance is getting hit with interest). This meant that there was no separate $128 payment. Clearly we went over budget anyway, even with that buffer there. Sigh.

Groceries were extra crazy this month because we got Blue Apron and then also did Home Chef (I had promotions for both) but then I didn’t get the Home Chef one canceled as quickly as I needed to (they charged me a week before delivery! ack!) and it was “too late” to cancel the delivery. We also threw a baby shower and I bought the cake and some other items, so that ate into our grocery budget (hardy har har – pun!)

Month-to-Month Progress:

I just checked our starting debt from December 2013: $80,713.00. We still have more than $15,000 to go – and that just goes to show how much interest can be generated in three years. Ugh.

How far we have come:

August 2016 Snowflaking

As a reminder, our goal for each month is to snowflake at least $239 to pay off H’s student loans by February 2017. (For more on our goals, see this.)

We snowflaked an extra student loan payment of $3,414.97 (including a budgeted amount of $2,459.17) in August. Read more in the snowflaking post I did for August.

August 2016 Consignment

$0 (August)
$43.10 (July)
$0 (June)
$0 (May)
$0 (April)
$51.98 (March)
$6.96 (February)
$64.66 (January)

We dropped off some other items for consignment this month, and we have about $10 sitting in the account there, but I chose not to bother getting it because we were short on time. I’m planning another trip soon because I have two more bigger-ticket items to take and then I’ll hopefully have even more there waiting for me!

Other Money Details

I got some info on a possible side hustle – I’ve let the client know that I’m interested in working on the project, but I haven’t heard back yet. If I land it, it could be $500 (before taxes), which would be pretty sweet! Plus, it can’t hurt to have something like this on my resume….
I was asked to do a project that will land me $150 (no taxes taken out!) and that will be pretty awesome – it can be a lot of hours, but it looks good on my resume and it’s still going to be $150. So, woohoo!

We are keeping our eyes open for a house in our target area – we can afford to be picky as staying in a rental for only $800 a month is pretty great and allows us to pay down our debt faster. It’s still disheartening to see our big pile of money each month get split between savings and debt eradication (especially as my student loans aren’t getting paid down much beyond the minimum payment, and they are accruing interest), but our net worth continues to climb because we are spending less than we make and we are prioritizing savings and debt reduction over other things.

Like clothes. Man, I could really use another pair of jeans (I have one that I will wear all weekend once it gets a bit cooler). I’m beginning to daydream about the pieces I could buy to expand my closet a bit (or to replace the pieces that are getting worn out). One more pair of jeans. A heavier cardigan I can leave at work to layer with when I’m the only one who is cold in the office. Some pairs of tights that don’t fall down. A pair of gray pants.

I gotta snap out of it! I can keep going with what I have for the time being. Gotta keep my eye on the prize!

Catching Up: July 2016 Wrap-Up & August 2016 Snowflaking

Welcome!

Each month I review how we did on our budget, whether we made our snowflaking goal, and how much we brought in consigning. That debt is going DOWN.

Late again!

Really late.

Excuses include: …

This month was crap.

Yep, good enough.

I’m gonna roll the wrap-up for July and the snowflaking for August into one post – neither is that great so I might as well get them over with, eh?

July 2017 Budget Recap – How We Did

Yeah. We had some friends stay with us for a few days, and I have made it a conscious priority to try to let go of my money anxiety enough to feel good about putting them up. They are financially conscious, too, but with the scheduling and the other obligations we had going on during the time they were here, we were short on time and wanted to spend as much time socializing (and not so much time cooking). Result: eating out (and a liquor store run before they arrived!).

We also spent a week away with family, and while my parents spent money on us to eat out, sometimes we bought our own food or helped out (in a small way, comparatively). So, that added on to our expenses.I really could have budgeted better for those things, as I knew they were coming. I just decided to bury my head in the sand and hope the math would work out somehow. This seems to be a theme with me. Ugh. If I know it’s wrong but keep doing it, that’s just stupid. Working on this.

Month-to-Month Progress:

Our sinking fund decreased by so much because we paid for L’s activities for the coming semester ($470!), including the Nutcracker performance she’ll be participating in (and she has an additional class for once a week through the fall term).

How far we have come:

July 2016 Snowflaking: $403.82

As a reminder, our goal for each month is to snowflake at least $239 to pay off H’s student loans by February 2017. (For more on our goals, see this.)

We snowflaked an extra student loan payment of $403.82 (with $400 set aside for savings). Read more in the snowflaking post I did for July, but the reason this number is so low is because we’re keeping some cash aside (about half of whatever we have to snowflake) just in case the right house for us comes on the market.

July 2016 Consignment

$43.10 (July)
$0 (June)
$0 (May)
$0 (April)
$51.98 (March)
$6.96 (February)
$64.66 (January)

Woohoo! Finally got some $ picked up and dropped off another box of items. Yay!

Other Money Details

The Check for H’s award finally came! It was about $700+ after taxes, and we snowflaked part of it to debt (as you’ll see below).

August 2016 Snowflaking

Okay, so my records on this month are a little confusing, so I’m not sure how exactly this all broken down, but I think what I am putting below is as close as I can get to reality.

August 2016 Minimum Payment

Mintly Navient Loans

$81.13 – minimum payment we sent (this one has gone down because Navient wants to keep making money out of us and make us take longer to pay it off, I guess? I got a notice this month that our monthly payment was being lowered, and lo and behold…. there it is!)
$58.41 (72%) – amount that went to principal (last month: 81%)
$22.72 (28%) – amount that went to interest (last month: 19%)
$35 – extra sent to Navient (we had already budgeted for $114 to send to Navient, so I went ahead and did an extra payment)
$9,231.26 – balance (last month: $9,315.21)
- You see how they got us to pay more? My minimum payment now only went to 72% principal because they kept the interest payment the same (around $22) but lowered the amount of money that goes to the principal! Grrrr.

Citibank Card (no-interest until August 2017)

$1,383.80 – payment we sent
$6,634.37 – balance (last month: $8,018.17)

August 2016 Snowflaking/Savings Breakdown: $3,414.97 (half sent to debt, half put into savings)

$102 – Swagbucks (<– referral link)
$700 – award check from H’s work
$153.80 – left in checking account at the end of July
$2,459.17 – budgeted money from the month of August after budgeting for other necessities