Financial Updates

So I know this was supposed to be an every three month thing, but I honestly dropped the ball on updating our finances and getting out of debt situation. Maybe this is good, so now I can provide actual numbers for July 2012 (instead of just guesstimates) which would have been three months from the first time I updated on our financial situation:

Best Buy: $628.42 

(We had some financial set backs this spring and early summer which meant I could only pay the minimum payment on this... so we weren't able to pay it off by July. We hope we're back on track now and plan to pay it off in December. p.s. I just paid $80.00 on this today, so my guesstimate for next month is $550 something.)

My personal CC: $1448.73 

(I said I still use this card. Not good, but it was necessary with our earlier situations... mostly having car problems and needing to replace 3 tires  after J took almost 2 weeks off of work etc etc etc. the good news is that my card has expired and I never got sent a replacement. I know I should go to the bank and ask for my replacement, but I think not having my CC to use will help me pay down the balance quicker.)

Compass Visa: $2667.16

Compass Gold: $4875.34 (under 5k on this! Woo Hoo!)

Student Loans: $17,196.50 + $431.66 

(I've decided to include this number just for the sake of having all of my numbers written down so I can look back in a few years and see how far we've gone. I still don't really consider this in the same category as the credit card debt. I consider this more like a car loan or mortgage because it was something that was necessary at the time and helped me to get better jobs now and give me more opportunities in the future.)

I totally found out that one of my previous student loans wasn't consolidated with the rest, so turns out we have an extra bill now. grrrrr. This is one of the things that added to our earlier financial problems. I thought I had updated all my contact info with all my previous lenders, but this one fell through the cracks and the bills didn't get to me until it was 6 months overdue. The payments for this small loan is only $50/month, but the first time I got the bills for this we were so past due that I owed $300.00! Now it's all paid up and I'm only paying the $50/month, but I think the plan is to pay off the BB card this December and pay off this smaller student loan in January or February of 2013. And from there we reevaluate.

J and I thought and talked and prayed about our finances, and ultimately we decided to go back to our original pledges for donating to the church and missionaries. This was a difficult decision and I still struggle with the guilt of not tithing my full 10% every paycheck. It just came down to the fact that we are trying to pay down our debt. We are doing the snowball thing, and there has been no snowball. According to all of my first calculations (when J & I first got married) we  should've been completely out of debt by now. I know that life happens and things don't always go according to my plans. My point is that we had been working so long and hard to claw our way out of debt. When we finally paid off his car and freed up that money it went straight to the tithe, so we were barely breaking even each month (and lots of times I did have to use my credit card to buy a tank of gas, or a gallon of milk or whatever). So, like I said we talked and prayed and thought about it and decided that we have to give what we originally pledged to our church and missions organizations. And we will reevaluate our status in January or February. We really want to be able to go back to tithing our full 10% as soon as possible. Like I said this is something I have struggled with and it's something I still feel guilty about, but this was the decision we had to make after lots of talking and prayers.