I'm going to try to make this as quick as possible. I was actually planning on going to bed early tonight, but then I decided I needed to balance my checkbook and check on some of my fave PF blogs. :) While I was at it, I thought I'd post a little update. I've included my debt and savings spreadsheet for you. I've increased my net worth by a little over $800 this month. While it's not a lot, it's certainly an improvement.

I've been going back and forth, back and forth between if I should I build up my emergency fund (which is currently at $475) or if I should put all my excess money to the BofA loan. I've decided to put everything toward the BofA loan. I am contributing a little each paycheck to savings and emergency fund, but not much. I'm making the minimum monthly payments on all my other debts and anything extra I'm putting toward BofA. As of this last paycheck, I had enough left over to put $200 extra principal to the BofA loan. And I'm planning on putting another $500 on it with my next paycheck.

I've put a lot toward the BofA loan already this year. The balance at the beginning of the year was close to $9,500. And now it's down to almost $6,000! That is a huge difference. Ideally, I'd really like to have the whole thing paid off by next June, but that means putting roughly $750 toward the BofA loan each month... it's quite a stretch. $500 is definitely more reasonable.

I'm also thrilled that my 401ks seem to be growing by leaps and bounds every time I check on them. They make my situations seem a little less depressing.

My car alerted me yesterday that my oil is due to be changed soon. I have a $50 Visa gift card that I'm going to use to pay for that instead of digging into my emergency fund. I'm very thankful I've kept that $50 Visa gift card instead of blowing it on pointless stuff!

With all the bills paid already, I have about $155 left until I get paid on the 30th. That should be plenty to last me until payday with some of it even left over.

Anyway, I'm off to bed. But I just wanted to give a little update. Night night!

- Bank Gal

I'm slowly but surely getting my debt paid down. After taking money out of my emergency fund last month to pay down a huge chunk of my BofA loan, it seems as though I'm starting to make headway. As I said in a previous post, I am not putting large amounts of money in savings right now. I'm not in jeopardy of unemployment, so I choose to hack away at my debt in large sums.

Last month, after taking money from savings and some from my paycheck, I was able to make a $1,750 payment to BofA. This month is a little less since I'm not taking any money from savings, but I am putting a total of $900 down on BofA. I've done the math and if I can make a payment of at least $650 each month, I can just about have that BofA loan paid off by this time next year. Any extra payments I make on this loan just helps me pay it off that much faster!

Now, next month I won't be able to contribute nearly as much to the BofA loan due to the fact that I took two weeks off work in June, thus cutting my July commission check down drastically. I can probably take money from savings, however, to help add a little to that payment so I can continue on my route to getting rid of this awful loan. I'm also making more than minimum payments on my other debts as well.

As you can see, my savings total went down $493.71 from last month, mainly due to the fact that I withdrew almost all of my emergency fund to paydown the BofA loan. However, my debt total has decreased dramatically! Last month I had approx $48,500, now I'm at $46,311! That is a big jump for just one month! I know not everyone is capable of this, but paying down these debts in such large chunks is really helping! I can't wait to get rid of it! Watching it decrease each month really helps keep me motivated.