Month in Review- September

September has hit and the crisp air is starting to settle us into fall. Nick and I have had a great month and had an opportunity to really test our financial goals. We have had multiple opportunities to give up and a few moments of excitement when we realize we are making really good progress. 

We are now Seven months into this debt elimination quest and we had a fairly good month staying in budget and even pre-planning for our spending splurges. We are getting to see where we fall short when it comes to budgeting and how to help each other stay focused, while still not giving up living life :) 

Unexpected Costs: 

Gas :) We spent like double this month on gas. Oh well! The car adventures were worth the extra money. We just had to dip into our AirBnB money to help cover the extra trips.

Unexpected Income: 

We had signed up for the Dogfish Head Dash a few months back, and so we put our apartment up on AirBnB for the weekend of the race. We ended up getting renters and had extra income to use toward food and a place to stay for the race.

We also worked a beer fest and were paid for our time! Nick also got a tip, so yay for Nick :) 

September Splurges:

Nick's Birthday is in September, so his mom came down and joined us for a long birthday weekend. We planned a good number of our meals in, but we also went out to dinner and I would consider this our monthly splurge. A huge thanks to Olga for covering a fabulous meal at Le Diplomate :)  

Funniest Moment: 

Calling Nick at work and telling him that we could pay off loan #34. He was having a kinda crappy day and being able to tell him that we had made it 3 months early was really AWESOME :) Loan #35 was one of my loans and so this is Nick's first loan we've paid off.

Yay US :) 

Lessons Learned: 

We are doing well with our short-term savings! Each month we put a good chunk of change away in our short-term savings. These amounts are pre-determined based on when they will be needed, but saved in smaller chunks. 

For example, we need an oil change every three months and that cost $30, we save $10 a month and at the three month mark we have $30 ready to go and have no excuse not to get our oil changed. This has worked great for haircuts, "get away fund", holidays, and medicine. 

This month we had our race in Delaware and I was excited to see that we had been contributing to our "get away" category, so magically we had money to help cover a AirBnB and gas money! This also came in handy when Nick went to get his hair cut. Sometimes it is the little things, but it feels great to know that pre-planning comes through :) 

Total Payment to Debt: $366.04*
*This amount is in addition to our minimum payments

WE PAID OFF NUMBER 34 :) 

YESSSSSSS!!! 

12.5 % Interest GONE!!

Current Debt: $173,746.44
This amount does not go down no matter how much we pay :( Nick's Federal loans are on a income-based repayment plan, so we continue to make monthly payments but they are not as high as the interest, so it just keeps going up, 'Tis our financial life! 

We started with a total of 35 Student Loans. This month we eliminated #34 and now we are on to our 33rd Student Loan.

#33 is currently at  $1,737.79 with an interest rate of 11.5% . 

We  anticipate this loan taking us  7 months to pay off- April 2015.