Debt Free Journey – Part II – 2021 Q2 Update

The 2021 goal was to bring our non-mortgage debt down to 0 by the end of the year. In our 2021 Q1 Update, we were at $99,581. So where are we at today? TL;DR > Our Total Non-Mortgage Debt is…

$94,264

Debt Composition

That remaining $94k-ish can be broken down into the following:

• Personal Loans
• Student Loans
• Car Loans
• Balance Transfers

Personal Loans

Amount: $35,765

Interest Rate: 6.890%

Monthly Payment: $543

This loan is moving along on auto-pay for now. As mentioned before, extra chunks of balance transfers will likely go towards this as well but it is the longest term loan so it’s most stable but still want some sense of urgency in payoff for this one.

Student Loans

Amount: $6,109

Interest Rate: 5.500%

Monthly Payment: $100

This one’s also just on auto-pay for now. Thinking about just paying this one off entirely from our HELOC that we opened up but trying to full think that one through.

Car Loans

Amount: $5,175

Interest Rate: 0.000%

Monthly Payment: $575

Moose has 9 payments left. At a 0% rate, there’s nothing special to do here. Just keep it going.

Balance Transfers

Amount: $47,215

Interest Rate: 0.000% (but typical transfer fees are 3-4%)

Monthly Payment: >$1,000

In all honesty, we’ve been pretty bad at tracking progress on this chunk of debt. However, two of the 0% promos are about to expire so we will look to get those transferred or paid off ASAP. Once the dust from that settles, I think the plan will be to shoot for a $1,000/mo payment with minimum amounts on the balances with the furthest out 0% expiration while putting the remainder of the $1,000 payment on the soonest expiring 0% promo.

In summary

It’s clear that we’re moving quite a bit slower than we need to if we want to be debt free by the end of the year. But we had a few other things that were tying up our focus in another refi, taking out a HELOC on the house and purchasing a rental property. Most of that is wrapped up at this point so we can chill out for a bit and let all the dust settle while re-focusing on this goal. I think the biggest issue we are facing is the debate between paying off debt vs saving/investing (or some combination of both). Whatever we think today doesn’t seem to always be the case days or even weeks from now. Anyway, more on that some other time.

P.S. – If you subscribed, please be sure to check for a confirmation email.