They say, “When it rains, it pours.” And August was a testament to that. Between our truck breaking down and a change in my business, our budget and debt were impacted in a not-so-fun way. We’re rolling with the punches but I have to be honest, it was a bit of gut punch.
If you missed out on our full plan for ditching our debt, you can catch up here.
Some things that went particularly well this month:
- We did much better sticking to our budget this month, especially in the squirrelly categories like dining out.
- Because we’ve focused on paying down our debt, we had more capacity to take on the curve balls that were thrown our way. We could call this the silverlining of the unfortunate events. While, of course, we don’t want to put things on credit cards, in this instance we didn’t have much of choice. The good news is we’ve lowered our debt usage enough that we were comfortable with that decision.
Some things that didn’t go well this month:
- Our 21-year-old truck had issues – the least shocking thing on the planet. Haha. Between the mechanic costs and rental car, we took a bit of a financial hit. Because we’ve been working so hard, it was a tough pill to swallow but sometimes you just have to do what you need to do. You won’t see the impact of all the truck costs below because they didn’t process in time, but you will see it September.
- In the spirit of being transparent here, one of my clients changed her contract with me and therefore, we have less extra income flowing in. Thankfully, this doesn’t impact our general monthly costs, but it does take away from the extra funds we had to put towards debt.
So here’s where we stand:
| Debt | Balance: July 31 | Balance: August 31 |
| Student Loan 1 | $0.00 – YAY! | $0.00 – YAY! |
| Student Loan 2 | $0.00 – YAY! | $0.00 – YAY! |
| Credit Card 1 | $0.00 – YAY! | $0.00 – YAY! |
| Student Loan 3 | $4,812.50 | $4,700.66 |
| Personal Loan | $9,176.64 | $9,088.71 |
| Renovation Loan | $10,559.42 | $10,421.46 |
| Credit Card 2 | $21,436.16 | $21,929.64 |
| Credit Card 3 | $16,560.30 | $15,920.39 |
| Total: | $62,545.02 | $62,060.86 |
Things that are keeping us motivated:
- No Spend September. We decided to cut out any and all unnecessary spending for the month of September (I’ll talk about it more next month) and the impact has been substantial. Less stuff finding its way into the house. More money staying in our budget where it should belong.
- We knew this debt journey wouldn’t be without ups and downs and we’re really leaning into the small bit of progress we’re finding month-to-month. Being able to look at a total debt balance decreasing, rather than being discouraged by the credit card going up is just the right amount of perspective to keep us moving forward.
You Need a Budget continues to be an amazing tool for us to plan ahead and ensure we can continue on this path. When you use this link to sign up, we’ll both get a month free!
Until next month!
xo,
Jen
