August 2019 Monthly Debt Update

Welcome to my August 2019 Debt Update! If you’ve been around for a while, you know that each month, I share a recap of my monthly income and expenses, so you can see exactly how my budget and debt pay-off go each month.

I usually provide a spending breakdown down to the penny, and I did that for the first 6 months of this year. You’ve got 6 full months of spending reports and budgets, all down to the nitty-gritty, archived here on the blog. But, preparing these spending reports have become so tedious and time consuming, that I’ve decided going forward, I’ll just be sharing a summary of my debt pay off progress.

OK, with all that out of the way, let’s get started!

Extra Debt Payments

My husband and I are currently in baby step 2. Our entire baby step 2 debt is comprised 100% of my student loan debt (undergrad + law school combined). When I first started paying attention to my student loan debt in January 2017, it totaled $104,901. Since then, we have been working steadily to get it paid off as fast as possible, and the goal is to become debt free by December 2019.

In addition to my standard monthly payment of $375.63, I make an additional payment to my student loan each payday (I get paid twice a month). My extra payments this month totaled $2,235.20. When combined with my standard monthly payment, we sent a total of $2,610.83 sent to debt this month!

Here, I break down those 2 extra payments, so you can see exactly how we did it!

NOTE: When I budget, I usually round up, instead of budgeting the specific bill amount. Anything left over, I throw at the debt.

Here’s a breakdown of my extra debt payments this month:

Extra Payment - August 1 = $780.00

For this extra payment, $747.61 came from the August 1 paycheck. But, where did the rest of the money come from?

• $1.68 was leftover in the life insurance budget (I budget $50, but the actual payment is $48.32)

• $0.03 leftover in the grocery budget (Hahaha! Every penny counts!!!)

• $6.60 leftover in my fun money (I usually keep any leftover money in this category and let it pile up, but I decided to send it to debt this month)

• $5.26 leftover in my eating out budget (I normally left this one pile up too, but trying to be gazelle-ish this month)

• $18.82 leftover in my “cushion” envelope.

Extra Payment - August 15, 2019 = $1,455.20

For this extra payment, $1,039.44 came from my August 15 paycheck. But, where did the rest of this money come from?!

• $331.04 came from Ebates

• $70 from returning a mirror I bought at Target

• $4.37 leftover from my standard student loan payment (it’s $375.63, but I budget $380)

• $4.36 left over from fun money

• $5.99 leftover in the eating out budget

Total Debt Update

I began my debt free journey in January 2017 with $104,901 in student loan debt. I started this month (August 2019) with a student loan balance of $12,208.06. As of September 1, 2019, the balance is $9,647.01. With this month’s debt payments, I have paid off $95,259.93 of my student loan debt. I’m 90% of the way to freedom!!!!!

Some super exciting things happened this month in terms of our debt pay off progress. First, and perhaps the most exciting for me is that we are officially at FOUR FIGURES of debt!!! FOUR FREAKING FIGURES!!!!! I can’t believe this debt is now under $10K!!!!!! It honestly doesn’t even feel real.

Second, we hit a major milestone of paying off over $95K of debt this month!!! That’s a huge number and a fantastic accomplishment, and I am just so grateful and happy that these years of hard work and sacrifice are paying off, and I can finally see the end in sight.

For more info on all the things we did to pay off our debt as fast as possible, sign up below for my Free Guide, full of tips and tricks.

And that’s a wrap! How about you?

• How did your budget and/or debt repayment go in August?

• Are you making progress on your 2019 financial goals? We have four months left—and that’s plenty of time to make progress!!

• Do you have any questions about budgeting or paying off debt? Leave them in the comments below!

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