I hit a major milestone (for me anyway) this past week by paying off my last credit card. I started in January with a student loan, an orthodontist note, a bank of america credit card and a southwest chase credit card -- all totally around $20K. I started my TOTAL MONEY MAKEOVER in January and let me tell you, I have been GAZELLE intense! I am super happy to report that I sent the last payment to the southwest chase card yesterday and I'm anxiously awaiting the balance to hit $0 so I can close down that card. Total debt paid off since January is $20,114.00

Now I'm moving on to tackle the car notes and much later on, our mortgage (according to Dave Ramsey's baby step plan). Now that the other debt is gone, I'll have an additional $1950 each month to put towards getting cars knocked out quickly!!

Having a garage sale this weekend so I'm hoping to make a little extra cash. We have a few lingering projects to do around the house and I haven't wanted to take money out of the budget to do it b/c I was so intent on getting that $20K gone by April. I'm glad I didn't get distracted b/c I was able to knock it out a full month early! Hoping to get maybe $200 or so....but I won't be heart broken if I don't. When I have garage sales, my main goal is to get rid of stuff rather than make money. Sooooo....wish me luck!

Earlier today I paid off the last $500 of my BoA credit card. It was a little bit of a stressful situation b/c I accidentially doubled paid a truck payment and I wasn't sure if I was going to get my double payment money back so I could make this final payment!

If the balance is $0 tomorrow (for some reason it takes BoA a while to apply the payment...?), I'm going to call and close the card out...never to be opened again. And since I paid it off before the end of the cycle this month, I won't be paying anymore interest!

I'm glad it is gone - of the 2 credit cards I have, this one had the highest balance so I was anxious to get it paid off quickly once I decided to get out of debt and stay out of debt. Balance in January was $11,118.00. With the help of a $6000 tax return, I was able to attack it very quickly and get it gone forever.

That leaves me with the other credit card with a balance of $3500. My current plan is to pay $1750 on March 15th and then another $1750 on April 1st!

As previously mentioned, my husband and I were planning to put our house on the market...however we keep wavering back and forth so I don't know if we will be moving or not. I hate not knowing for sure although I know this is not a decision we should rush into. I'm just that way - once I get something in my head, I have to 'address' it in some way sooner rather than later...not let it remain unresolved and open ended for long periods of time. I'm hoping we will come to a mutual decision within 1-2 weeks and we can stick to the decision...whatever it may be. Fortunately the question isn't around 'can we afford the house' -- we can, it is actually a very affordable payment for us (total $1600 with taxes, 1st & 2nd note and insurance). The question is around whether we want to sell & make some money to pay off cars (the remaining debt after April 1st) and then begin saving about $4500 a month to pay CASH for our next house once we move in about 3 years.

I don't want to regre whatever decision we make...? Any suggestions out to on determining if you should sell or not?

Debt reduction plan started in January. To date, here is my status:

Orthodontics - $1130 = paid
Sallie Mae Student Loan - $3850 = paid
CC#1
*January balance = $3,550
*Current Balance = $2,950
CC #2
*January balance = $11,118
*Current Balance = $7,880 to be paid off tomorrow with tax return money + $1880 from payroll!

Cars 1, 2 & 3 = $80K
House = $150K

TOTAL DEBT PAYOFF FOR 2011 YTD = approx $16,700

As happy as I SHOULD be about paying off my stupid credit card tomorrow, for some reason I'm not that excited about it. I will pay it off tomorrow morning and then close the account once the payment is cleared and balance is $0. For some reason BoA can't seem to update the balances when you make online payments until a couple days later. BUT my money is definitely deducted as soon as I issue a payment....??

Anyway, I am glad to have that one gone. With such a high balance, my interest payment was always high and that always pee-peed me off. I'm glad it will be gone and I will never do that to myself or my family again. The other one CC#2 should be pay off by the first pay period in April. Same story there too - will close the card down once the balance shows $0.

That will leave my cars and my house. We are selling the house and have a plan to accelerate paying off the cars within 6-8 months. If we don't sell the house, we still have a plan to have them all paid off in less than 2 years....unless I need to sell one.

If the house does sell, we will rent locally and save money so we can pay CASH for our next house in 3 years once my middle daughter graduates HS. We think we will be relocating but not 100% sure just yet.

Anyway, while I have made great progress by getting "Gazelle Intense" and killing off this debt....for some reason I'm not feeling as excited or relieved as I thought I would be. I am very grateful but I think I'm probably feeling "behind" at this point since we don't have any money invested and no significant savings. Hopefully that will be drastically improved by the end of this year...and well underway going into 2012 & beyond.

This weekend was a giant suck-fest for me, hopefully the coming work week will be much better. It can only improve, right??

have a good week :-)