Debt Report - I paid the bills
Debts paid in full: 3
Amount paid off: $ 2176
Paid this month: $485
Total amount of payments made: $3301
Next debt in line: at&t advertising $1351
Number of debts left to pay off: 13
Current balance: $161,121
Balance change since starting the plan (April 2007): -$2174
My current balance keeps rising because of interest charges on some of the bigger debts farther down my snowball list. Even though I’ve paid off 3 debts and have made $3301 in payments and have increased the total amount I’m paying each month, my total debt has risen $2174 instead of going down.
A big reason I am doing the 30 Day Challenge is to bring in some passive income to help pay all these bills down much more quickly. I can only work so many jobs before I run out of time. The only thing that’s going to help me is raising my income to overcome the interest I’m being charged, and make my snowball role over faster. So I need multiple income streams that I don’t have to work on all the time. I need some streams that take care of earning money once they’re set up. I also don’t want to rely on one job or one income source ever again. If that income source goes away, you have no income. Another of my long-term financial goals is to have a sufficient number of income streams, most of them passive, that generate a sizable income when added together. Then if one goes away we won’t take a financial hit. With the skills I’m learning I’ll be able to replace that stream easily, or I’ll already have so many that it won’t matter if I replace it. I also can’t meet the income goals I set a few posts back if I don’t rake in some passive income.
I feel like the interest charges are like legal robbery. Those who charge interest just tack a few hundred dollars onto my balance each month and I will eventually have to pay it. Thank goodness most of my collectors aren’t charging me interest. The bad thing is the highest debts I have are charging me interest to the tune of 12% to 32%. I have asked three times for reductions of interest rates, and so far I’ve been ignored. Hopefully, one day, they will stop ignoring my requests, or I’ll be paying them enough to make the balances go down so I’ll be paying less interest on the remaining balances.
For now, I’m focusing on my three main income streams: my business, odd jobs, and tutoring; and I’m spending about 1-8 hours/day on the 30DC when I can. Some days don’t require much time, but some do, and I skip some days altogether. They give us the weekends off, so I catch up if I get behind.
On the debt side, I’m only focusing on the next debt in line, at&t advertising and publishing. If I look at the growing total balance too long, I get really depressed, and then I don’t do anything to make either side of the equation better.
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