The 2015 tax return was deposited on February 10th. It is now February 17th and most of the money is gone but the choices we made took us in a more positive direction.
$2,490.00 - Paid off the smallest of our two credit cards. This freed up $75.00 dollars a month. I hide the credit card so it was not readily available. I really wanted to cancel it but I need some available credit hanging around to help bring up my credit score.
$1,601.00 - The mini van is paid off. We now own both of our cars. When Rosie called me with the pay off balance, I was surprised as I had estimated it would be between 2-3k. Because of the savings I decided to make some other pay offs.
$1675.00 - This went to our discover loan. About 2 years ago Rosie lost her job for 7 months. During that time we could not afford to make all of our minimum payments and we stopped making payments on the Discover loan. Once Rosie was employed we started up the minimum payment of $564 a month but we still had an outstanding payment of $3,000 caring over each month for the months we did not pay. The additional funds I added is helping us to get caught up because the loan matures in July of 2017. I am hoping to get read of it by tax season of next year. I also increased our month payment to $600.00 even to help out a bit.
$1,500 - To pay of our attorney for DS2 adoption in 2013. I hate that is has been so long. We had always planned to pay him when our 2013 taxes came in (which we are still working on) and finally decided to just pay him and get it over with instead of waiting on the IRS to move their ass.
$94.00 - Received a letter from a creditor saying they will take the payment of $94.00 for a debt of $250.00. We jumped at the change. I really need to pull my credit because I know we probably have a several hundred dollars worth of this type of debit that need to be dealt with.
$260.00 - Rosie went the dentist and needed a crown put in. Luckily we have very good insurance but it ends on the 26th if everything goes well on this new job. The dentist isn't sure if the crown will be available in time so we might need to shell out a bit more for 'Installation'.
I am still waiting on the $2400 dollars for the 2013 taxes. My tax advocate promised to get back to me on the 10th. On the 11th I called and left a VM but didn't hear back. I received a letter on Monday that apologized that out advocate was unable to get back to us but she will contact me by February 22nd,
I am trying not get frustrated as common sense tells me that something happened unexpectedly like an illness or death in the family. At the same time I have been waiting 3 stinking years and I am getting irritated.
Moving forward, by the end of March I will be writing a check for $3000.00 to my older sister for the down payment on her car. I will pay her the remaining 2k in June. She just borrowed our elliptical machine to 'try it out' and if she likes it I might be able to sell it to her and deduct it off what I owe on the car.
That is it for the big pay offs for 2016. The rest of the year is to stay on budget, keep making payments on debt and do not add any new debt. The only exception is that I have a feeling we are going to need to buy a second car this year. I budgeted for 3k down payment plus trading in our two current cars (not the one I am buying from my sister). That should lower my payments and then I budgeted to completely pay it off the beginning of 2017.
If all goes well the Discover Loan will be paid off in January of 2017 and the Discover Credit card the beginning of 2018. Then I will use the first few months of being debt free to search out and pay off all the little things that have gone to collections and the first time since I was 20 years old be 100% debt free!!!
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