End of May 2021 (2/60)

Hey everyone! It's the end of the second 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 May.

While last month had some weird income and spending, this month was much more like my normal month. Of the total money I spent in May ($3,599), just over 36% went to paying down my credit card debt. Given that I had to pay $1,476 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.

I do have an exciting update! I paid off my American Express card in its entirety on May 28th, which was a week later than anticipated, but it is paid off! Going forward, my plan is to only use this card to buy drinks and food at my second job, and to use a percentage of my savings from that job to pay the balance off each month. That way, I keep the card active, which lenders like to see, and I can continue to earn points on it each month, but I won't go deeper into debt from it.

For the month of May, I brought in $2,784 and spent $3,599, meaning that I did have to dip into my savings. 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 savings did decrease, 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, as my crypto investments were, like all others, hit by the crypto crash earlier in the month.

I brought my debt from $87,057 to $85,937, decreasing my total by $1,120, falling short of my goal of $1,476! That means that in order to pay my remaining debt in the 58 months I have left in my 5 year goal, I now need to pay $1,482 per month on my principal amount.

With my remaining debt, making my minimum payments will decrease my principal by $404. This means I'll need to pay an additional $1,078 on my principal balances. My plan for this month, then, is to decrease my Chase balance by at least $1170. If my Chase balance is $2500 or lower by the end of June, then I will have met my goal for the month! This month will again be hard to meet my goal, but I am planning on picking up some extra hours at my part time job to help out, and I've gotten a raise at that job as well. I do also have some mature savings bonds that I can, if necessary, cash in to help bring down my balances.

I'll be traveling early in June and then using the rest of this month working hard to meet my payoff goal, but in the meantime, I'm planning on updating with some tips to travel cheaper around 6/8.

Thanks everybody for hanging out! Jayme