99k by 2011

So I’m a big fan of all the rules with YNAB. I feel like I knew many of them and was doing weird versions of them. For example, our 2 biggest outflows each month is our mortgage and our kids’ tuition (kindergarten for my son and all day care for both). Both are due at the beginning of the month, so I always put aside half of each payment with each of our paychecks the month before. I am paid twice a month, and my husband is paid every 2 weeks (which is usually 2x a month). Then, by the time the new month comes, those payments are sitting waiting to be paid.

What was really a pain in the ass though, was the semantics of it all. We had a savings account which our bank switched over to a checking, because I was making too many transfers in and out of it. I physically placed that earmarked money out of our checking into the “old savings” account in order for it to be “safe” for mortgage and school tuition.

I love that YNAB lets me earmark money for things and I don’t have to physically move that money anywhere. I was already *kind of* living on last month’s incom, with this habit. Wahoo!

This is my journey to get rid of our non-mortgage debt. I am a working wife and mother of two (3yo daughter and 5yo son) and I handle the family’s money.

Well, things have crept up! Most definitely! We knew things weren’t going well. I knew. But I stuck my head in the sand and ignored. Each month, when we ran out of money in our checking account, I would say, “Use the credit card, we’re out of money,” but never pay that balance down. Several years ago, we got a home equity loan to do some work on our basement and decided to also pay off credit card debt with it. 50 thousand dollar HEL, but only 20 of it was for the house. We didn’t change our system, and just racked up more debt on the now zeroed out card. Last year, we also bought my husband a practically new car. So we have 44k on our home equity loan, 19k on a car loan, and *clears throat* 34k in credit card debt. I’ve worked the numbers and thanks to both of us making a good living, and my husband’s yearly bonuses, I figured that we can have this (the credit cards, I mean) paid off BY THE END OF NEXT YEAR.

So here we go! Wish us luck.