Debt Payoff Update for February 2015

I know the picture is blurry, but the most important part is in yellow. Yep, that’s the $0.00 balance on our Home Equity Line of Credit! This was all the remaining debt from our in vitro cycle. I’m so excited I want to jump up and down!  I’ve been telling you since the fall that we have been working through our Financial Freedom Plan to become debt free.  We also showed you how we eliminated $20,599 in debt in one day! (See all of our Debt Free Journey posts here).  Also, start our 30 Day Spending Freeze here.

When we started this journey, we had a $20,000 IVF Loan, $6,000+ in student loans, and a $20,599 auto loan (started as a $30,000 loan). That’s over $50,000 in debt at the start of this process!

Right now we have one debt left (other than our mortgage), and that is my husband’s student loan from nursing school. This has a balance of right around $3,000.  While we have the cash on hand to pay it off right now, we don’t want to pull our savings too low, so we will be working for the next several months to pay that debt off.  The hardest temptation for me will be to NOT pay that off. I know that it’s so important to keep at least 6 months of income saved, so this will be tough knowing that we have the money to pay it off, but want to keep our savings up as well.

Once we get the student loan paid off, our next savings goals are to save cash for a car and try to put as much on our mortgage as possible so we can pay that off early as well.  This will be a huge endeavor for our family, but I know that if we keep following our Financial Freedom Plan we will get there eventually!

How we made changes this month to save:

• Crazy enough we watch Alaskan Bush People every week as a reminder that humans need so very little to live and still enjoy life.  We know there are a lot of haters when it comes to this show, but we watch it for pure entertainment, and because its a weekly reminder that we can live on less! This has really helped us keep the focus of spending less in our everyday lives.
• I increased the contribution amount to my Health Savings Account for 2015, so I’m saving more by not paying taxes on that money, and three out of four of us had a doctors visit this week. I have to submit receipts once a month and I just dropped the receipts for January in the mailbox last night!
• We continue to work on building our Young Living essential oils team to create extra income for our family. This past month our check was over $400! We have been using these oils since last year, and they have made such a difference in our lives! We diffused eucalyptus oil all day yesterday since we all have a cough with congestion!
• We will be paying our taxes online for free with Turbo Tax! It’s free for all three with them!  We could possibly pay off our student loan with our tax return, but my husband is a nurse with a student in a school, so he has no regular hours in the summer, and I’m thinking we will need this when his income drops.
• Our borough bill was much larger this month because of the “clippers” we’ve encountered here since Christmas with very cold air and snow! So, this month we’re working very hard to keep lights turned off when we don’t need them, and we’re keeping the heat turned back during the day when we’re not home. Our bill usually runs around $200, but last month it was $311! I know some of that was still from Christmas lights, and we even have LED lights on a timer! I’m debating about not even putting up lights next year since I really feel it adds the expense of at least $50 for December. However, I do love coming home to lights outside, especially on snowy days.
• CAR UPDATE: After we told you about our van’s sudden death, we decided to start driving my grandmother’s car. Well, we’ve had several repairs totaling over $500 in the last two months, but I will walk to work before I get a new car payment! Hubby and his dad fixed her car and it runs, but doesn’t have air conditioning right now (which we don’t need in February in PA!). Hubby and I also decided that since that car doesn’t have automatic locks, I will drive our 1995 Ford Explorer for now. At least it has automatic locks and more room for all my school supplies (I drive between two different schools several days a week).
• My father in law bought the van for us, and he is having it repaired, and it looks like we may be able to drive that again (He loves to tinker with cars, and has 2 other cars he drives). It will be so nice if we can get that car back since it has the automatic sliding doors with the baby.  However, I’m so grateful that we have any car to drive right now!

Prayer Requests:

• Our 8 month old had what could be a possible seizure a few weeks ago, and now he has minor spasms everyday. We are doctoring for this with a pediatric neurologist, but it takes about 90 minutes to get there, so we have both had to miss work, which means less income to pay off debt.Of course, my son’s health is my biggest concern. I just know it does affect our debt repayment plan when we make less money.
• That we will be able to get rid of all of the student loan debt by the end of the summer. I’d really like to be completely debt free (other than the mortgage) before I head back to school next year!

I hope all of you are doing well with your debt free journey! Let us know how you are doing by commenting below!