I have only 7 payments left on my car loan!! I am so excited about this. I had no idea I was this close to paying it off. June is now my target date to finish paying this. I had to rearrange my debt schedule but it actually works out better.

I have one last payment for my CC in March and that's all done with, so I'll just take the payments I've been making to the CC and just add it to my car loan payments. That and any tax rebates or extra income will go directly to paying this bad boy off.

I can't believe I am right around the corner to paying off my CC and paying off my car! After those I have my college loans to kill off.

I know it's the fifth but it's never too late to draw up a budget for the month, right?


Apt rent = $462.50
Phone bill = $20
Electric = $49.45
Cable/Internet = $41.33
Holiday Trip = $50
-------------------------
623.28
- 45 for what BF owed me
-------
578.28 --PAID 5 Jan 08

College Loans = $235 --Due 7 Jan 08
Car = $261 --Due 19 Jan 08
AT CC = $20 --Due 19 Jan 08
--------------------------
$516

It's easier with these bills a little spread out in January, but this coming pay day (11 Jan 08) is going to hurt because of all those days off from the holiday.

Also for line AT CC, I had planned to pay off this credit sooner than later but since this coming pay check is half of what I usually get I'm going to hold off and use what ever is left over in January to pay it off and only pay the minimum + 60% = $20 when it's due. Leaving the total left to pay off $220.

After bills I will have a little over $120 in my account from my Jan 11th pay check, and then after the neek week of bills I'll have roughly $340 left in checking until my next full pay check on the 25th. I think that's a good cushion.

Things I promise myself not to do during January: spending money at the bar or out on food... ok well I will atleast try to do this. I do promise not to go out for lunch. I will have to go food shopping but I wont buy things I dont need.

Once the 25th comes I plan to put $400 in my Roth and $200 in my iGO savings.

My goals are to put $4000 in my IRA before April 15th and have $10,000 in my emeregency fund by the end of 2009. Since savings acct rates are lower than what I want I'm going to put more money towards paying down my high interest loan debt.

I plan to complete my 2007 tax return as early as possible. One reason is because I dont want to be doing it at the last minute AGAIN, and another is because it's my money and it's not generating interest for me. Depending on how large my return is, I want to use more than half of it for my high interest loan, the rest for my Roth.

I hope my cushion holds out.

Thank you everyone for all your great comments and suggestions.

I've dug up my college loan information and it's not the end of the world. I have three loans, one with an interest rate of 7.2% and two with a rate of 2.8%. The first one has a balance of $3,000 and the second two have balances of $19,000 and $17,800.

If I have children, I'm definitely going to plan their college fund before they are born, it's just not worth it to be this much in debt and only be 25! 529, anyone?

I think I can pull off paying the 7.2% interest rate loan fairly quickly, since that's way higher than my savings acct rate of 4.9%. And I'll keep chipping off the higher balances.