October 2007 Debt Report
Debts paid in full: 4
Amount paid in full: $2,207
October payments: $175.56
Total amount of payments made to date: $3972
Next debt in line: Southern Credit Recovery $452
This is an old hospital bill that cropped back up that I’d forgotten about. They stopped sending letters for payment when their business was damaged during Hurricane Katrina. Their records are back up, so we’re back paying this bill.
After SCR: at&t advertising and publishing: $1,507
They’re tacking on a late fee of about $12/month for lack of on-time payment, and come to find out, I finally got the bill for the last month I owed on my contract this month, not last month.
Debts left to pay off: 14
Current Debt Balance: $161,850
Balance change since last month: -$1,557 (increase)
Balance change since starting the plan (April 2007): -$2,281 (increase)
I couldn’t pay as much on debts this month because of the computer repair. I also have 3 debts that aren’t part of the snowball, and then my first mortgage on my house. One is an SBA SOHO* loan which isn’t bankruptable for $8,589 @ 12.5%. The other two are home equity lines of credit for $5,185 @ 12.7% and $21,559 @ 9.25%. These 4 get paid after food, clothing, and utilities, and before all other expenses, including the debt snowball, which always comes last.
My house payment is very affordable, especially since Katrina pushed rent up to the heavens. I have a 4 bedroom house with a two-car garage for what people are paying for a two bedroom, one bathroom apartment. That payment includes principal, interest, PMI*, homeowners insurance, and taxes. Once I get the second mortgages paid off I can petition my mortgage company to stop charging me PMI, which will lower the payment by about $70/month.
I’ve already been working on the November budget, and November is looking a lot better than October is turning out to be. I’ve been struggling to decide how to pay the debt snowball in November, but I think I finally made a good decision about how to apply what money I will have. If you haven’t read earlier posts, all my unsecured debts are in collections and I’m paying them on a pro rata basis until I can either pay them off or come up with enough to settle them. I believe the smaller ones will be paid off and the larger ones will eventually be settled. Next month it looks like I’ll have a few hundred dollars more than I usually have because of extra tutoring and a few sales of stuff from around the house. I’ve decided to pay the usual pro rata payments and use the extra money to pay down or even pay off the lowest debt in the snowball, which is currently the old hospital bill. Any extra money after that will be applied to at&t advertising and publishing.
Some of that money will be paying for my son to go to the dentist, I need new glasses, and I need a new pair of tennis shoes. My old ones are around 10 years old and I’m now using them for yard work. I need these because I wear them in my office at home when I’m working and for general casual wear. Croc knock-offs are getting too drafty to wear since the weather turned cold this week, even with heavy socks.
As I’ve said before, I keep looking at the top of the snowball because if I look down to the bottom of it for too long, I get really depressed. I focus on what I’m able to pay and pay off, not on what’s left. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time, and that’s how I’m focusing my energy and earnings to pay all this off.
*SBA SOHO means Small Business Administration Small Office Home Office; PMI is private mortgage insurance.
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