End of April 2021 (1/60)

Hey everyone! It's the end of the first month and I've made some exciting progress towards my goal! First, let's start off with my calendar for the month, where I broke down all of the money I spent in April.

This month, I had some unusual income and expenditures. I refinanced my mortgage at the end of March and cashed out $1,859 from the refinance, which I used to pay for a trip I'll be taking in June to see some of my family. My travel expenses are usually not this high! Of the total money I spent in April ($5,624), nearly 45% went to paying down my credit card debt. Given that I had to pay $1,490 on the principal to meet my goal, that's a pretty good indicator that I met my goal for the month!

I also have an exciting update! I paid off my Care Credit card in its entirety on April 13th with the money I had remaining from the refinance after paying for my trip. This means that I got a head start on paying down my next credit card in line, my American Express.

For the month of April, I brought in $5,732 and spent $5,624, leaving me in the black. This does include a small bonus I got from my part time job, the refinance cash, and some money that I got from my grandmother for mowing her lawn, in addition to my normal income and my roommate reimbursing me for his half of the house costs.

I also increased my savings, investment (thanks in part to Dogecoin continuing to grow), and retirement holdings. My goal is to get my total holdings to $65,000 within the next 2 years, so if I continue at this pace, I should get there no problem!

I brought my debt from $89,381 to $87,057, decreasing my total by $2,324 and blowing past my goal of $1,490! That means that in order to pay my remaining debt in the 59 months I have left in my 5 year goal, I now need to pay just $1,476 per month on my principal amount.

With my remaining debt, making my minimum payments will decrease my principal by $411. This means I'll need to pay an additional $1,065 on my principal balances. My plan for this month, then, is to pay off my entire American Express card, and then decrease my Chase balance by at least $420. If my American Express balance is 0 by the end of the month and my Chase balance is $3,100 or lower, then I will have met my goal for the month! This month will be a little harder to meet my goal, since I'm not going to get a bigger sum of money (like the refinance cash), but I am planning on picking up some extra hours at my part time job to help out, and I'm anticipating a raise at that job sometime this month as well.

I'll be spending this month working hard to meet my payoff goal, but in the meantime, I'm planning on updating with one of my investments maturing around 5/16!

Thanks everybody for hanging out! Jayme