End of June 2021 (3/60)

Hey everyone! It's the end of the third month and I've made some 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 June.

Of the total money I spent in June ($3,315), just under 36% went to paying down my credit card debt. Given that I had to pay $1,482 on the principal to meet my goal, that's a sign that, while I did definitely pay down my balances, I didn't quite make my goals for the month.

For the month of June, I brought in $2,787 and spent $3,315, meaning that I did have to dip into my savings again, but not as much as last month. This income includes 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.

My cash savings did decrease again, due to me needing to pull from my savings accounts to make my monthly payments. However, my holdings overall increased. This is mostly due to my retirement savings and my stocks increasing in value once again, as well as MyConstant opening ACH deposits again so I could start increasing my investments there. Check out my monthly MC updates for more info on my investing there!

I brought my debt from $85,937 to $85,389, decreasing my total by just $548, falling very short of my goal of $1,482. That means that in order to pay my remaining debt in the 57 months I have left in my 5 year goal, I now need to pay $1,498 per month on my principal amount.

With my remaining debt, making my minimum payments will decrease my principal by $402. This means I'll need to pay an additional $1,096 on my principal balances. My plan for this month, then, is to decrease my Chase balance by at least $1200. If my Chase balance is $1900 or lower by the end of July, then I will have met my goal for the month!

This month will again be hard to meet my goal, but I do have a couple plans to help me reach my goal:

• I'm picking up additional hours at my part time job.

• I am going to start donating plasma at a local plasma center, so that I can use that money to pay for bills and non-necessary expenditures.

• I am changing my electric plan to hopefully start saving a lot of money on that bill. It unfortunately won't take effect in July, as that bill has already processed, but it should start helping for the next month.

• I have about $650 in savings bonds I am working towards cashing in to help pay down my student loan balance- In this case, I would only need to reduce my Chase balance to around $2500.

• After looking at my monthly house bills, my roommate and I have agreed that he will be paying an additional $50 for his half of the bills.

• This is a five Friday month, meaning that my full time job (which pays weekly) will be giving me an extra paycheck!

I'll be once again working hard to meet my payoff goal, but in the meantime, I'm planning on updating with my experience and thoughts following my first couple times donating plasma around 7/10.

Thanks everybody for hanging out! Jayme