September 2019 Monthly Debt Update

Welcome to my September 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 $1,730.00. When combined with my standard monthly payment, we sent a total of $2,105.63 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 - September 1 = $1,000.00

For this extra payment, $793 came from my September 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)

• $28.28 leftover in my “cushion” envelope from last payday that I did not use.

• $2.00 leftover in my nails/beauty envelope.

• $3.06 leftover in the cell phone budget.

• $100 from selling things on Facebook.

• $25 from turning in my jar of coins I had been collecting over time.

• $25 I found in my wallet that I have no idea where it came from.

• $21.98 I pulled from this month’s cushion to bring the grand total to $1,000.

Extra Payment - September 15, 2019 = $730

For this extra payment, $725 came from my September 15 paycheck. But, where did the rest of this money come from?!

• $4.37 was leftover in my standard student loan payment envelope (I budget $380, but the actual is only $375.63)

• $0.63 was from my buffer/cushion from this paycheck to bring the payment to an even $730.

Total Debt Update

I began my debt free journey in January 2017 with $104,901 in student loan debt. I started this month (September 2019) with a student loan balance of $9,647.01. As of October 1, 2019, the balance is $7,578.66. With this month’s debt payments, I have paid off $97,322.34 of my student loan debt. I’m 93% of the way to freedom!!!!!

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 September?

• Are you making progress on your 2019 financial goals? We have three 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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