Debt Dumpers - 2016

[dayvewc]

Ok, going to try to recreate (parts of) my post that got eaten the other day.

I spent some time playing with an excel spreadsheet to see how much faster using my snowball would have paid off my highest interest, highest balance payment compared to instead using the snowball to build my emergency fund.

What I'm looking at is that I have 3 0% interest accounts that I will pay off during 2016. If I take the payment from the first two (that payoff in July and then December) it will reduce the length of my payment by about 2 more years. (Final payment in May of 2019 instead of June 2021). I already pay a little extra, and that is estimated to reduce the payoff by 2.5 years already.

If I continue to pay on this loan and dump the snowball in to savings, then by the time the payoff happens, I will have saved about $9700. Instead, if I use the snowball to increase the payment, and then use the entire snowball after it is paid off for savings until it would have been paid off, I am looking at having about $12,200 in savings.

I really like the idea of having the larger savings at the end, but that is still looking 5.5 years from now. My concern is that my emergency fund is pretty close to non-existent right now, and I do not like that.

For full disclosure, and for accountability purposes, my accounts are as follows (highest interest rate to lowest, payoffs calculated at current monthly payment rate, current payment vs. minimum payment):

OL TS - about $13,500 @ about 14.5% interest - estimated payoff June 2021 - $300 vs $263
DVC 1 TS - $ 6,912 @ 11.75% interest - estimated payoff June 2019 - $200 vs $143
Personal loan - about $14,500 @ 10.99% interest - payoff October 2018 - $492 vs $492
DVC 2 TS - $ 5,301 @ 8.99% interest - estimated payoff June 2021 - $100 vs. $71
Home Mortgage - $ 36,972 @ 3.5% interest - estimated payoff June 2035 - $450 vs $415
CareCredit - $ 1,189 @ 0% interest until December 2017 - $100 vs $25
Best Buy - $ 490 @ 0% interest until July 2016 - $70 vs $25
USAA Consolidation - $ 7,072 @ 0% interest until January 2018 - $590 vs $140

I am expecting the following "extra" income amount this year:
Work PD Stipend $400 March
Tax Refund about $3500 March
Retention Bonus between $2000 and $5000 in May
Summer job $2000 ($1000 each at first of July and first of August)

The Retention Bonus is really up in the air on how much we will get. It all depends at what level the state decides to fund it and how they decide to calculate "service time". I will most likely get the $2000, so that is what I am planning on, but I might get lucky and receive more.

I intend to use about half of my tax refund to pay for the trip to US with the nephew as his graduation present in March, and then will use about $1000 of my retention bonus for the DL 60th anniversary trip I have planned for the end of May.

All of my other bills/utilities are either paid direct from my account or I use my gas CC for the extra discount per gallon and then paid off each week.

But I really do not have any extra left over to build savings. I am managing to save about $300 a month already, but it is primarily earmarked for maintenance fees, taxes, and insurance payments. So, while I could conceivably use some of it for an emergency, I don't really have way to "make up" for any that I "borrow" from that account and I will need to have the full amount at various points through the year.

If anyone has another idea, I would love to hear it. Currently, my plan is to use the $400 to payoff the Best Buy card early, and then use that payment to build actual emergency savings. That would put me with about $700 in emergency savings by the end of the year, and my current payment plans will have the 3 0% interest account paid off by Christmas 2016. Which means in 2017, I will have a $700 snowball to pay toward the accounts with interest, which would let me absolutely pay off the two DVC accounts, and make a dent in the personal loan, or make a huge dent in the personal loan if not completely pay it off.

Which means in 2018, I should be able to pay off everything except the home mortgage. And still making all my other bills and utility payments plus adding $70-$100 a month for emergency savings.

I am open to other options and ideas, truly I am. Partially because the way I am managing to make my other bills is through my second job, but I am not sure how much longer I can physically continue with it. I love it, but just not sure I can keep on doing it.

Sorry, didn't mean to write an actual novel, but I started the whole thing by just looking at the "what if" on the snowball on the one account, and it kind of expanded and then exploded, encompassing everything.

 

[dayvewc]

Oh, and MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, and Happy Holidays the remainder of the season!

 

[stayhomemom77]

Merry Christmas everyone!!

 

[hollybearsmom]

I am so afraid I won't be able to keep myself out of the stores tomorrow. I need to hold onto the cash I have, but those sales on everything draw me in. There are about two things I need and tons I would want if I saw them. Agh. I am not strong enough to not do this....

 

[Brancaneve]

I am so afraid I won't be able to keep myself out of the stores tomorrow. I need to hold onto the cash I have, but those sales on everything draw me in. There are about two things I need and tons I would want if I saw them. Agh. I am not strong enough to not do this....

Stay strong!

 

[gracie1]

I am so afraid I won't be able to keep myself out of the stores tomorrow. I need to hold onto the cash I have, but those sales on everything draw me in. There are about two things I need and tons I would want if I saw them. Agh. I am not strong enough to not do this....

Last year I stayed out of the stores but shopped online! I have to admit that I never did a lot of shopping after Christmas but I do need to get bows and wrapping paper but will probably just wait a couple days! At least I don't have to return anything!!

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!! I am in a food coma right now. I don't know how old everyone is here but for those who remember back in their 20s when you partied too hard and had that sick feeling in your stomach for a couple days... That's how I feel right now except it's from food not booze!!

 

[gracie1]

Ok, going to try to recreate (parts of) my post that got eaten the other day.

I spent some time playing with an excel spreadsheet to see how much faster using my snowball would have paid off my highest interest, highest balance payment compared to instead using the snowball to build my emergency fund.

What I'm looking at is that I have 3 0% interest accounts that I will pay off during 2016. If I take the payment from the first two (that payoff in July and then December) it will reduce the length of my payment by about 2 more years. (Final payment in May of 2019 instead of June 2021). I already pay a little extra, and that is estimated to reduce the payoff by 2.5 years already.

If I continue to pay on this loan and dump the snowball in to savings, then by the time the payoff happens, I will have saved about $9700. Instead, if I use the snowball to increase the payment, and then use the entire snowball after it is paid off for savings until it would have been paid off, I am looking at having about $12,200 in savings.

I really like the idea of having the larger savings at the end, but that is still looking 5.5 years from now. My concern is that my emergency fund is pretty close to non-existent right now, and I do not like that.

For full disclosure, and for accountability purposes, my accounts are as follows (highest interest rate to lowest, payoffs calculated at current monthly payment rate, current payment vs. minimum payment):

OL TS - about $13,500 @ about 14.5% interest - estimated payoff June 2021 - $300 vs $263
DVC 1 TS - $ 6,912 @ 11.75% interest - estimated payoff June 2019 - $200 vs $143
Personal loan - about $14,500 @ 10.99% interest - payoff October 2018 - $492 vs $492
DVC 2 TS - $ 5,301 @ 8.99% interest - estimated payoff June 2021 - $100 vs. $71
Home Mortgage - $ 36,972 @ 3.5% interest - estimated payoff June 2035 - $450 vs $415
CareCredit - $ 1,189 @ 0% interest until December 2017 - $100 vs $25
Best Buy - $ 490 @ 0% interest until July 2016 - $70 vs $25
USAA Consolidation - $ 7,072 @ 0% interest until January 2018 - $590 vs $140

I am expecting the following "extra" income amount this year:
Work PD Stipend $400 March
Tax Refund about $3500 March
Retention Bonus between $2000 and $5000 in May
Summer job $2000 ($1000 each at first of July and first of August)

The Retention Bonus is really up in the air on how much we will get. It all depends at what level the state decides to fund it and how they decide to calculate "service time". I will most likely get the $2000, so that is what I am planning on, but I might get lucky and receive more.

I intend to use about half of my tax refund to pay for the trip to US with the nephew as his graduation present in March, and then will use about $1000 of my retention bonus for the DL 60th anniversary trip I have planned for the end of May.

All of my other bills/utilities are either paid direct from my account or I use my gas CC for the extra discount per gallon and then paid off each week.

But I really do not have any extra left over to build savings. I am managing to save about $300 a month already, but it is primarily earmarked for maintenance fees, taxes, and insurance payments. So, while I could conceivably use some of it for an emergency, I don't really have way to "make up" for any that I "borrow" from that account and I will need to have the full amount at various points through the year.

If anyone has another idea, I would love to hear it. Currently, my plan is to use the $400 to payoff the Best Buy card early, and then use that payment to build actual emergency savings. That would put me with about $700 in emergency savings by the end of the year, and my current payment plans will have the 3 0% interest account paid off by Christmas 2016. Which means in 2017, I will have a $700 snowball to pay toward the accounts with interest, which would let me absolutely pay off the two DVC accounts, and make a dent in the personal loan, or make a huge dent in the personal loan if not completely pay it off.

Which means in 2018, I should be able to pay off everything except the home mortgage. And still making all my other bills and utility payments plus adding $70-$100 a month for emergency savings.

I am open to other options and ideas, truly I am. Partially because the way I am managing to make my other bills is through my second job, but I am not sure how much longer I can physically continue with it. I love it, but just not sure I can keep on doing it.

Sorry, didn't mean to write an actual novel, but I started the whole thing by just looking at the "what if" on the snowball on the one account, and it kind of expanded and then exploded, encompassing everything.

Wow!! What a post! No wonder you were mad when you had this all typed out and lost it!! I would be too! Ok - so I'm going to dive in with some ideas - give or take. Let's see if I followed your thread right though! Tax refund is an estimate of $3500 - in which you plan on using $1750 towards your US trip. Your plan on using $1000 out of your $2000 stipend towards DL trip. That means you would have $400 from your March work stipend, plus $1750 from your tax refund, $1000 from your retention bonus left and $2000 from your summer job for a total of $5150 left at the end of all these bonuses/job. You could technically pay off the DVC that's $5301 with the 8.99% interest and be done with that all together! It is just a one time loan - right? And by that time the best buy card would be paid off just doing the regular payment.
The money that you get for rent from your roommates- is that already factored into your everyday bill payments? If not maybe you can put their rent or half their rent towards your emergency fund

 

[dayvewc]

Wow!! What a post! No wonder you were mad when you had this all typed out and lost it!! I would be too! Ok - so I'm going to dive in with some ideas - give or take. Let's see if I followed your thread right though! Tax refund is an estimate of $3500 - in which you plan on using $1750 towards your US trip. Your plan on using $1000 out of your $2000 stipend towards DL trip. That means you would have $400 from your March work stipend, plus $1750 from your tax refund, $1000 from your retention bonus left and $2000 from your summer job for a total of $5150 left at the end of all these bonuses/job. You could technically pay off the DVC that's $5301 with the 8.99% interest and be done with that all together! It is just a one time loan - right? And by that time the best buy card would be paid off just doing the regular payment.
The money that you get for rent from your roommates- is that already factored into your everyday bill payments? If not maybe you can put their rent or half their rent towards your emergency fund

Let's see: yes, I should have about $5150 left from the different things. I say should because the summer job has additional expenses that I have not calculated in to my normal budget, so depending on how some of them fall, I might actually have less left over from the summer job.

And yes, the DVC 2 is just a one-time loan. I did a 50 point add-on. By August (when I get the last summer payment) I should owe about $4750 on it if I don't make any other extra payments.

Most of the money from the roommates is factored in to paying bills. Actually, the entire payment from one roommate is used to pay bills, and the other one I do not count on for income. That roommate is not as meticulous in paying rent - though to be somewhat fair, he has been having issues with his checks from where he works. I've seen the checkstubs, and he has been paying me more than I would think he could afford out of them, but it is still nowhere close to what his monthly bill is.

I could put what he pays in to my emergency fund, it would not build as consistently as I would like but it would build slowly.

 

[gracie1]

Let's see: yes, I should have about $5150 left from the different things. I say should because the summer job has additional expenses that I have not calculated in to my normal budget, so depending on how some of them fall, I might actually have less left over from the summer job.

And yes, the DVC 2 is just a one-time loan. I did a 50 point add-on. By August (when I get the last summer payment) I should owe about $4750 on it if I don't make any other extra payments.

Most of the money from the roommates is factored in to paying bills. Actually, the entire payment from one roommate is used to pay bills, and the other one I do not count on for income. That roommate is not as meticulous in paying rent - though to be somewhat fair, he has been having issues with his checks from where he works. I've seen the checkstubs, and he has been paying me more than I would think he could afford out of them, but it is still nowhere close to what his monthly bill is.

I could put what he pays in to my emergency fund, it would not build as consistently as I would like but it would build slowly.

Slowly isn't a bad thing - and then that would be a nice size loan paid off plus a small cc. Then you could snowball to the next one - or be more consistent with snowballing a part to the emergency fund and the rest to the next loan

 

[bababear_50]

So ,swimming ,swimming swimming
I made a trip out to our "Boxing Day Sales", kind of like the U.S. Black friday sales.
I was strong and only picked up bathroom tissue restock,but I had to go to the pet store and get some supplies which put me back $50.00 (these rescue goldfish are proving to be expensive).Somehow one of my little guys has developed black spots which i think is due to too high a level of ammonia in the water. Hopefully the water treatment stuff works,I've grown quite attached to "Curley,Larry and Moe". Fingers (fins) crossed here. I am thinking of opening a small Registered Educational Savings Plan for my GD through my work credit union.
I wish I could have opened it when she was born but I figure better late than never and neither of her parents have the resources to open one, they are still paying off their student debt. It may not be able to contribute much this year but many family members have said if I start one that they would on special occasions contribute. She has 7 more years before College /University so I will see what we can do.
I Hope everyone is resisting the after Christmas sales.
Hugs to everyone
Mel

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

For the last several years I have been able to file my taxes for free through TurboTax Online because I have a Vanguard brokerage account. Well this year they have ended the discount, so I had to figure out what I wanted to do this year. I want to stick with TurboTax because it is really easy to use and I am used to the interface. The current offer for TurboTax Online says $34.99 Federal + $36.99 State ($71.98 total). This isn't terrible, I guess, but it is definitely more than free.

So I started looking around at TurboTax software (that you install on your computer, rather than the online interface). I found the TurboTax Deluxe version, which is equivalent to what I use online, for $49.99 at Amazon . And then I noticed that they had a bundle offer with Quicken Deluxe 2016. Quicken is like Mint.com (same company makes both), but it has more advanced features like debt reduction planning and enhanced budgeting. The cost for the bundle was $79.70! So for less than $8 more than using the online version, I was able to get Quicken too.

There may be more sales in the future, sure, but I see the benefit to using these enhanced tools now to help us budget and set up our debt reduction plan for the year ahead as overriding the few dollars this will save me later. Excited for when this arrives.

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

I'm finally up for air after Christmas! I'm very in for 2016. We made some great progress in the beginning of the year but the last few months have really kicked us in the teeth especially with my car.

The first round of 2016 bills are due with the current paycheck so I'm off to do that next. Then budget for the first quarter of the year.

 

[Miss Whimsy]

oh man it's time for 2016 already how did that happen

My last student loan has about a $1K balance left, and even though it is the lowest interest rate of any of my debts my first goal for 2016 is to knock that one out so I can get the quick win. Then focus on the credit cards after that.

 

[dayvewc]

For the last several years I have been able to file my taxes for free through TurboTax Online because I have a Vanguard brokerage account. Well this year they have ended the discount, so I had to figure out what I wanted to do this year. I want to stick with TurboTax because it is really easy to use and I am used to the interface. The current offer for TurboTax Online says $34.99 Federal + $36.99 State ($71.98 total). This isn't terrible, I guess, but it is definitely more than free.

So I started looking around at TurboTax software (that you install on your computer, rather than the online interface). I found the TurboTax Deluxe version, which is equivalent to what I use online, for $49.99 at Amazon . And then I noticed that they had a bundle offer with Quicken Deluxe 2016. Quicken is like Mint.com (same company makes both), but it has more advanced features like debt reduction planning and enhanced budgeting. The cost for the bundle was $79.70! So for less than $8 more than using the online version, I was able to get Quicken too.

There may be more sales in the future, sure, but I see the benefit to using these enhanced tools now to help us budget and set up our debt reduction plan for the year ahead as overriding the few dollars this will save me later. Excited for when this arrives.

I did not know the quicken and mint were made by the same people. I've used both but greatly prefer quicken. I especially love that I can enter transactions on my phone and it will sync to my computer. I think you'll really like it.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Hi All!
We had a great Christmas and hope you all did too! (for those who celebrate Christmas..)

Anyway, we are so close to being debt-free except our mortgage I can't stand it!
Dh and I got $1200 from various family members as Christmas gifts so that all went toward dh's truck. We should have it paid off by February 11.
Then just one last cc that is 0% interest until Oct which was for our last 2 vacations and our March cruise. For material stuff I can be strong but for vacations that's another story. It's like kryptonite on Superman. We are so undecided on a summer vacation again I think we could skip one for 2016 or maybe just spend a couple days at the beach.
If things go according to plan, we should have our last bill paid off by 4/14.

Stupid Murphy has visited again today. My minivan has power side doors and the driver's side will only open/close manually. Then I noticed a small cable hanging outside the vehicle near the 3rd row windows with the one end all rusted and snapped. I guess that's the issue. It's not an urgent repair so it can wait until bills are paid off. Then again if it's going to be like $500 I may just skip it altogether. It's 10 years old and I probably will be keeping it another couple years but ds15 can easily use the other door. It's always something so I just keep swimming!

ETA: One great little find... We went to Kohls to return an "online order with store pick up" for clothes we bought for FIL that I thought may not arrive in time for Christmas but finally did. I had $10 in Kohls cash and nothing in particular I really need. Usually I get a new pair of slippers every Christmas but we forgot completely this year.
So with the after-Christmas sale, the Isotoners I like were only $11.20 with 60% off. Then with a 15% off coupon and $10 Kohls cash, the slippers were only $1.02. Yay!

 

[gracie1]

Hi All!
We had a great Christmas and hope you all did too! (for those who celebrate Christmas..)

Anyway, we are so close to being debt-free except our mortgage I can't stand it!
Dh and I got $1200 from various family members as Christmas gifts so that all went toward dh's truck. We should have it paid off by February 11.
Then just one last cc that is 0% interest until Oct which was for our last 2 vacations and our March cruise. For material stuff I can be strong but for vacations that's another story. It's like kryptonite on Superman. We are so undecided on a summer vacation again I think we could skip one for 2016 or maybe just spend a couple days at the beach.
If things go according to plan, we should have our last bill paid off by 4/14.

Stupid Murphy has visited again today. My minivan has power side doors and the driver's side will only open/close manually. Then I noticed a small cable hanging outside the vehicle near the 3rd row windows with the one end all rusted and snapped. I guess that's the issue. It's not an urgent repair so it can wait until bills are paid off. Then again if it's going to be like $500 I may just skip it altogether. It's 10 years old and I probably will be keeping it another couple years but ds15 can easily use the other door. It's always something so I just keep swimming!

ETA: One great little find... We went to Kohls to return an "online order with store pick up" for clothes we bought for FIL that I thought may not arrive in time for Christmas but finally did. I had $10 in Kohls cash and nothing in particular I really need. Usually I get a new pair of slippers every Christmas but we forgot completely this year.
So with the after-Christmas sale, the Isotoners I like were only $11.20 with 60% off. Then with a 15% off coupon and $10 Kohls cash, the slippers were only $1.02. Yay!

That is so exciting that your so close to being debt free except the mortgage!!!

 

[NYEmomma]

Joining for the first time ever!!

Our debt:
Car 1: under $5k (5%)
Car 2: under $5k (5%)
Credit card: $10k (9%)
Window loan: $1400 (0%)
Furnace loan:$4k (0%)



We moved thissummer... our family desperately needed a bigger house & better school district. We bought afixer upper to get into what we needed, hence the new windows and furnace (the windows were original to the 1932 house & the furnace was 28yo). We already have the money to pay off the windows. Credit card is also due to our move & medical expenses.

We'll be getting around $3k back at tax time & we VERY unexpectedly got $5k from my FIL tonight. I'm of the opinion we should pay off a car and roll that payment into our CC. DH says we should put it on the CC sincethe interest rate is higher.Opinions?

 

[NYEmomma]

I should add (because my tablet is a POS and wont let me edit, we've got a $1k expenses coming up in the next month since i needto have my gallbladder out.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Joining for the first time ever!!

Our debt:
Car 1: under $5k (5%)
Car 2: under $5k (5%)
Credit card: $10k (9%)
Window loan: $1400 (0%)
Furnace loan:$4k (0%)



We moved thissummer... our family desperately needed a bigger house & better school district. We bought afixer upper to get into what we needed, hence the new windows and furnace (the windows were original to the 1932 house & the furnace was 28yo). We already have the money to pay off the windows. Credit card is also due to our move & medical expenses.

We'll be getting around $3k back at tax time & we VERY unexpectedly got $5k from my FIL tonight. I'm of the opinion we should pay off a car and roll that payment into our CC. DH says we should put it on the CC sincethe interest rate is higher.Opinions?

Wow, that's so nice of your FIL!!
As for which to pay first, there are 2 schools of thought, neither being necessarily right or wrong. Kind of like vanilla vs. chocolate.

Popular belief is to do the math and calculate where you would save the most. Logically, you would choose the debt with the highest interest rate.

If you follow Dave Ramsey, a famous speaker on paying down debt, he would say to forget the interest rates. He says that if we had followed proper math in the first place, we wouldn't be spending more than we earn.
Here is a summary of his recommendations:
First put/accumulate $1000 to have as an emergency fund. It won't get you through every emergency but it will get you through your washer dying, unexpected vet bills, brakes on your car, etc so you don't have to resort to charging these unplanned bills on a cc.

Then list all debts in order from smallest to largest then attack the smallest one first with all you got. Keep paying the minimum on the rest. He suggests some extreme cut backs to pay down the debt faster and here is the small disagreement I have with him. He would tell me to cancel our cell phones, cable TV, stop contributing to our retirement accounts, sell dh's truck to eliminate the truck payment and just keep a junker for now. I don't disagree that this would speed up my debt elimination but it's a bit too drastic for me. If we're all miserable we won't stick with it very long.
Often, the smallest bill isn't very huge and it's a quick success. Just seeing one bill hit 0 is encouraging and keeps you motivated to do more.

Next step once the first debt is paid off is to start snowballing. That's where you take the minimum payment of the first debt and start applying it to the 2nd smallest bill. This would be in addition to the min payment you were already paying on bill #2. Here is where some people would fail if they weren't really following a plan. They would just say "woo hoo, we freed up more spending money!" You have to be diligent to make sure to apply it to bill #2. When #2 is paid off, take the min payments from bill #1 and bill #2 and apply to #3, still continuing to pay #3's min payment. Now the snowball is starting to grow and you keep going down the list.
OTOH, if you try to attack the mountain first, the largest bill, it can be very discouraging because you don't have much extra $ to apply to it and don't see much progress. With the DR/snowball method, by the time you get to the last bill, your monthly payments are much larger because all of those smaller bills are gone.

It really worked so well for me these past 2.5 years and I can see light at the end of the tunnel. I find it easiest to pay the bills online so that I can make several payments per month. So let's say I used to pay our Sears bill of $25 with the 2nd pay each month and the Amazon bill of $75 with the first pay each month, then those weeks are when I apply those payments to the one I'm currently attacking. Except now instead of sending $75 to Amazon, I send it to dh's truck payment. Then the next week instead of sending $25 to Sears, I send it to dh's truck payment. They really don't care if I make payments every day, as long as I make at least the minimum.

When I first started I used a 2nd online bank, Capital One 360, to transfer each part of the snowball immediately on payday so that it wasn't accessible by ATM or mixed in with other bills or just sitting there making our checking account look fat. The quicker I get rid of it, the less time I have to change my mind and do something stupid with it. Now I'm more diligent and got better at the whole thing so it's pretty simple and I rarely use the 2nd account.

I wish I learned all of this 20 yrs ago. Our house would be paid off by now.

ETA: You can google DR or search on YouTube to listen to his speeches.

 

[Colleen27]

Jumping in and hoping for a better 2016. Murphy took up residence around these parts this year, bringing some expensive but still better than a car payment repair bills and speeding up the timeline on replacing the roof on the single-story part of our house. And honestly, having a regular paycheck and knowing where the next dollar is coming from went to our heads a bit so we had a very undisciplined year in terms of travel/concerts, kids' activities, Christmas, and worst of all, eating out (which is my nemesis when I'm busy - 16 credit hours and three kids added up to a lot of "don't feel like cooking" nights this semester). I also had to do some personal shopping to rebuild a small professional wardrobe after 15 years out of the workforce because I start my first internship next month. We're still not in a terrible spot - about $2500 in assorted small debts, $2000 left on the girls' tuition for this year, and my student loans, which are now on track to be $17500 when I graduate next year - but after being used to being debt free I'd REALLY like to get back there again. We made some small progress in 2015, wiped out a couple thousand in credit card debt and got ahead on the girls' tuition so we'll have a few months without those payments in the spring, but we also wasted enough money on frivolous/unrewarding things that I'm frustrated with myself for not exercising more self-control.

So I'm in, looking for a little inspiration and motivation to keep me on track in 2016. My goal is to have everything paid off, including my student loans, by mid-2017 because our first child starts college that fall. So for 2016, I want to get through the last of the credit card/medical debt and half the student loan.