April 2020 Debt Free Journey

Our debt free journey continues into April along with the rise of Covid-19. As of April 28th, we’ve been home for 45 days. There are some big feelings and challenges that encompass us all during these crazy times. It is completely normal to feel a full range of emotions about Covid-19 and what our world looks like today. We have felt exhausted, frustrated, and anxious at times, for sure. But we have also experienced a newfound sense of calm along with so much gratitude and appreciation.

We have never had the ability to spend this much time together as a family. It’s something that constantly wears on me when we both work long days, leave early, and get home late. I don’t want to spend a majority of our day commuting and separated. So right now, I am fully soaking this time up. We can let LJ wake up naturally, and move through our routine on our own time. There’s no need to rush to make dinner at six and then feel bad when we’re too tired to do anything after LJ goes to bed. We feel incredibly fortunate to be able to stay safe at home right now.

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Maintaining a positive outlook

I’ve been monitoring our finances pretty closely since I’ve been off work for over a month, and we are down an entire paycheck. Honestly, I am excited at what this time at home is going to mean for us. I think being forced to see our finances in a new light and live on only one paycheck will benefit us in the long run. I’ve calculated our monthly expenses and income. We can pay all our our normal payments and have a little leftover for groceries/gas/etc (not that we’re using much gas right now) on just one salary.

That means that as long as we don’t drastically increase our spending when life goes “back to normal,” we should easily be able to put almost my entire paycheck towards paying off debt. This isn’t quite a new revelation, but it is one I’m seeing with fresh eyes because of our current circumstances. What really excited me was adding up three of our smaller debts (wedding loan and two student loans), and calculating that we could pay them off completely in about 6 months once I return to work!

There’s always a linchpin

To be really fair, we don’t have a few normal bills that most people do. We don’t pay rent right now, our cars are all paid off, our car insurance is covered, and we don’t pay for water, utilities, or internet. We read a lot of financial independence success stories, and what we recognize most have in common is what we call a linchpin. There is always one really pivotal point that stands out to us. It’s usually the thing that, had it not happened, there may not be a success story to read. For us, we consider living with Travis’s parents to be our linchpin. If we were still paying our ridiculously expensive rent in Saint Paul, we would not be able to focus on our debt the way we are.

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Med bills, birthdays, etc.

This month was unique in that we received the stimulus check due to covid-19. This basically equated to the month and a half that I’ve missed of work. We had a lot of medical bills that we were working on, so when we got Travis’s paycheck and the stimulus check, I sat down immediately and worked on our finances. I’ve been reading You Need a Budget, and I’m appreciating the “only budget with money you have” rule. It takes a lot of pressure off of feeling like I have to have everything accounted for down to the penny months in advance. Here is the breakdown for mid-end of April expenses:

• $83.60 ENT payment
• $151.14 Anesthesia from LJs surgery
• $400 remaining balance from my wisdom teeth surgery
• $502.17 LJ’s ear tubes surgery
• $500 payment to Mom and Pop for our car
• $110 Travis’s birthday money (we put toward the first half of the month bills, so this is a payback)
• $100 LJ’s birthday money (same as above)
• $348.10 (WF CC Balance)
• $1039.21 (Normal bills and debt payments)
• Grand Total: $3584.22

Our stimulus check was $2,900 and Travis’s check was $1309.44, for a combined income of $4209.44. Subtract the 3k+ from above and we’re sitting at $625.22 until next payday. That money will be split between groceries for two weeks, our savings account, and our checking account just in case.

Grand Total

Here is the current breakdown and grand total of our debt:

• Wedding Loan: $4,659.91
• Credit card 1: PAID OFF
• SoFi Loan: $15,428.65
• Nelnet: $20,713.87
• Heartland: $3,588.32
• Fedloan: $3,556.65
• GRAND TOTAL: $47,947.40

By far the most exciting thing about this month is that we PAID OFF my credit card! Due to the stay at home order in Wisconsin, we haven’t really been leaving our house. Not leaving means we aren’t spending money on gas or random purchases, and we’re trying to be quick and smart about our grocery store trips. We decided to put some of the money from the stimulus check toward paying off the $440 on my credit card. It feels absolutely AMAZING to be done with that! We physically cut the cards up months ago, so now it’s just one less thing to worry about.

Our total debt from March to April has gone down $2,115.14! From January until now we’ve paid off $5260.13. This last month has really proven that if we stay focused and committed to paying off our debt, we can make it happen! I’m thrilled about our progress so far. If we pay off 5k+ every four months, we’ll be able to pay off over 15k this year alone!

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we don’t have near as many expensive medical bills in the near future as we’ve had the last few months. We are continuing to build our emergency fund back up, because calamity does tend to befriend us.

Be well,

Caitlyn