debt

Between Tim and I we have accumulated some debt that we've been avoiding for quite some time, I know this isn't the right way to deal with it but I just kept telling myself that we can't afford it right now and we'll pay it off when I finish nursing school. However after doing our tax return and seeing how much money we made last year I am ashamed that we do not have more to show for wonderful incomes.

Back in Austin Tim was unemployed for a while and he lived off a few credit cards for a few months and always only made the minimum payment, then when we moved to Seattle so abruptly he and I also lived on those cards until we got settled. Needless to say the balance on those cards are higher than I would like and we haven't used any of them in YEARS!

My debt is mostly in student loan form and one credit card but lucky for me, they never let my limit get anywhere close to Tim's limit on his card.

I never make a new years resolution but I think i just decided to make a few.

1. Pay off all of our debt which I am estimating to be $15,000 or less and keep in mind the bulk of that is student loans (so stop freaking out mom.)

2. In July find a nice little apartment for Tim, Henry, Nashville, and I that is affordable so that we can continue to add to our savings.

3. After having all the debt paid off still have a minimum of $5000 in savings by the end of the year.

That debt estimate does NOT include our car. We had somewhat of a hard time getting a loan for the car because of this debt and because of that the car is only in Tim's name. So by the end of February we should have all of Tim's debt paid off because of our Tax return and the money we have in savings now and we can then re-finance our car loan to get a much better interest rate on the car (I am not even going to tell anyone the rate we have now because its just embarrassing!)

So the goal is by my 26th birthday to have a happy healthy 8 month old baby boy, be debt free, and be well on our way to saving up for a down payment on a future house. And I think all of this is very very do-able.