Getting Out of Debt in 07

[niftyneon99]

Can we start up a thread and sticky it so that those of us who have a resolution to tackle debt in 07 can come and report?

We could have the following Questions for all to start out with:

How much debt you have
How much debt you want to pay off in 07
How are you tracking/handling your debt


And we can also work on creating an emergecy fund for our families.

So, what do you all think? I like to see progress, so I'm game for it!

[niftyneon99]

I'll start us off :)

How much debt you have
Dr's Office -$300
Mom -$300
Lawyer -$500 (and still growing)
Van- $18500.97
Mortgage $86,969.93

How much debt you want to pay off in 07
$4,100

How are you tracking/handling your debt

right now I have a binder that I keep my budget in, but I would love to get a program like MS money

My main goal is to pay off the dr's bill ($300), my mom (paying for the cow we bought- $300), and the lawyer ($500). Then to repay myself $3,000 and create an emergency savings fund.


ETA:

What are your financial goals for 2007?

Pay off Dr., Mom, Lawyer and repay myself. We are going to also up dh's 401k to 6% (which is the max his employer matches) and create a savings account for emergencies- right now our savings has $857.76 in it, but technically it is money repaid to myself that I stashed away in there.

What are your plans for achieving them?

I am going to repay the dr. $100 a month for 3 months, my mom $150 for 2 months and pay the lawyer $100 a month until I get mom's paid...actually this will be easier I'll just show you lol!

January- dr (100), mom (150) and lawyer (100)
February -dr (100), mom (150-pd off), lawyer (100)
March -dr (100 -pd off) lawyer (250)
April -lawyer (50 - but by then we'll probably have another bill)

The tax refund that we are getting is going to pay back myself and the rest will go into a savings account (if I can keep dh out of it!)

We also have a car and a four wheeler that we are going to sell come spring. Dh bought the 4 wheeler (with my neon money) to resell for a profit (bought it for $1300, is selling right now for $4k) and we have his mom's car that we took when we bought her a new one and we are going to sell it (will go back into savings)

And from there it will depend if we have won or lost what we will be paying off next. If we win we won't have any debt so all monies will go into a savings account, and if we lose then the monies will go towards repairing the house so that we will be able to live here indefinately (a good $20K is needed to repair)

So, that's my plans!! I am excited for this financial year!

[berlinsmommy]

Okay, I made it a sticky, but maybe we expand it a little and ask:

What are your financial goals for 2007?
What are your plans for achieving them?

I don't really have debt to tackle since DH's truck is at 3.99%, his student loans will be below 6%, and our only other debt is the house, but I'd REALLY like to save enough to fully fund Roth IRAs for DH and I as well as fully funding Berlin's 529 plan (meaning funding up to the state tax deductible amount, I believe it is $3,120).

My plan: just save and stash it away. I'm starting with $2k in our Money Market that was earmarked to pay off 2 things on 0% cards, our bed at around $790 due 2/5 (or interest accrues), and DH's tires around $840 due in early April. I got a nice bonus and a little raise, so I just paid off all the X-mas stuff we charged on credit cards today. I wasn't planning on being able to do that for 2 more weeks, so my next paycheck is mine, free and clear. I will use that to pay off the bed, not touching the money in my Money Market Account, but rather add to it. I also plan to set up an automatic savings plan and put my entire raise in savings.

Most of the 529 plan will happen automatically since I have $251 go in every month, so that will be $3,012 of it and I'll have to cough up $108 (hopefully from Upromise).

My other goal is to carefully research funds to decide where to put the Roth money once I have it. I may stash a bit at a time into Roth IRA CDs until I have enough to make a brokerage account for it worthwhile, I'm not sure yet.

[My2Miracles]

Funny you should start this topic -- that is our #1 goal for '07! I don't exactly know how much our debt is, but we're SO serious about getting it all paid for, that we have 2 houses up for sale (our previous, which has been up for almost a year now...ugh!..and the house we're in now, which has a huge mortgage). I think we're actually going to rent a house (majorly down-size) and pay everything off that we can this year. We have some medical bills, our cars and little things that were racked up over the course of trying to sell our other house and fix our current house up. We've just decided that paying a huge mortgage isn't worth killing ourselves over. We've tried to budget, but we are self-employed and therefore, can't really determine how much income we get each month (and believe me, we've tried to compare year-to-year). So...instead, we "push" the business and make more money to meet our financial obligations. BIG MISTAKE!! DH has worked himself to death and...well, it's just not worth it. The big house was nice while it lasted...but DH not seeing the kids is much more important.

[queenofthehivemomof5]

Well I guess I will subject my debt to the scruitiny of others as well.

We owe about $30,000 in debt.
-$13,000 is owed for our mini van that was repod after my DH had his work accident and we could not keep up with the payments. I am pleased to say that I am settling this debt for a little over $3000 made in 4 monthly payments. I am just waiting for the notarized letter to come saying that this once paid will be considered paid in full and will be removed from my credit.

Little by little I am chuncking away at some of the other stuff mainly some medical bills.

I also have some almost 10 year old credit card debt which we are not sure if we should settle and pay or if we should wait till it clears our credit reports (this was a Visa and Montgomery wards cards that were issued to me when I was 17 and very careless about money...I charged and never paid, intrest rates grew and before I knew it we were in over our heads)

I read conflicting reports on if I should pay or not pay and the effect it will have on our credit. So I am still not sure...

One of our goals is to get our credit in a better spot so that we can buy a house eventually. We have a lump sum of money coming to us from DH workers comp that will be paid over 6 months and I really want to save 1/2 and apply most of the other 1/2 towards our debt. We also need a second car, so will be looking into getting a cheap used truck for DH to take to work.

[dolphinlover]

awesome post as this is one of our goals this year as well.

before we crinkle up and die, this is what we have to pay off:

credit:
piddly credit bills $2650
military card $6000
bank mc $8000
loans:
bank loan $14,500
student loans $13,000
other:
car $32,000
house $40,000

coincidentally, this is the order we're getting them paid off, lol

come february the $2650 will be paid off, thanks to the tax return. the monthly payments that we were making on those bills will go on the military card. once that's paid off, the monthly payment we were making on it plus the monthly payments from the piddly credit bills will be put on the bank mc, and so on and so forth...

DH gets his annual raise end of this month (army) ~ i was QUITE disappointed with the BAH "raise"... a whole $12/mo! but that extra money will be put towards the bills as well to get them paid off sooner than later.

keeping it simple so i don't get sidetracked! we have no money until all this stuff is paid off, lol!

[mama22qts]

First of all, I do not consider our house to be debt. It's an asset that appreciate as time goes on. Anything that depreciates, and revolving debt are what we will work on this year.

We will tackle the credit card debt initially. Just in the two statements that we got today we have 11,000 in debt. DH will be getting a bonus this month that will pay those off entirely. I do not know about the other debt, but I do know there is more. DH handles the household finances, but I decided today to open the statements and have a look at them. Normally I just pass them on to him. We're in good shape financially and I have never had any reason to question his decisions, so I don't even open them.

But today I saw that both of the interest rates were over 17%! I got one reduced to 12.24, and the other I have to get dh to call to get me added. I'm an authorized user but I cannot make changes on the account, according to the rep on the phone.

I almost died when I saw 17%. Those two cards will be paid off in a couple of weeks, but STILL!

Those are the main balances we have, but there are still other smaller debts. We've made the big purchases we wanted -- now it's time to pay the piper, so to speak.

[dolphinlover]

Originally Posted by mama22qts First of all, I do not consider our house to be debt. It's an asset that appreciate as time goes on. Anything that depreciates, and revolving debt are what we will work on this year.

normally, i wouldn't either. i put it in the debt category the minute we started renting it out. one day i'd like to be able to pocket the rent instead of turning it over to a mortgage company. we don't plan on living in it again ourselves... we've outgrown it!

[cutenirish]

I used to count the house but now I've realized not to cause when we sell we'll make money on it or break even.

Here goes:
1449 Credit card (0% til 2/15/07) paid off by then
6771 Credit card (0% until 3/08) hoping it's paid off by August 2007
7100 Student Loans (4725 from ameircorps so down to 2375 11/07 paid off by April 2010)
Smart Buy on the car-- we we'll have that for another 2 years 5 months THEN DH will get something for MAYBE 7k (hoping to pay in cash)

SO 8220 in credit cards so in eight monts lets hope we can PAY that off!

[Macaela25]

Wow - one of my favorite topics of thought. We own DH's car, and we owe at least another 3 or 4 years on mine - it's not a priority at the moment.

We have:

$6100 in cc debt, most of which is at 0% (down from $13500 nine months ago - YAY ME!!)

approx $8500 in student loans, which are not a priority at the moment since interest is low and tax deductible

Our goal is to have the cc's paid off by my birthday (May 1). After that, we will start hunting for mortgages and trying to scrape together additional $$ for a microscopic downpayment and closing costs on a house. Anyone know if it's better to have a little bit of debt and no downpayment or a no debt and a tiny downpayment???

I should be able to pay at $1000 towards our debt next week (due to bonus and budget strangling) and another $2000-$3000 in February from our tax return and February's bonus. I think we can meet our goal in 4 months. I'll worry about the student loans and my car AFTER we get a house.

A house....sigh.....