Mrs. Micah’s plan to pay off our $818 in credit card debt (and September budget).

Debt Repayment
When working out our net worth, I discovered that Mr. Micah’s credit card has an APR of 29.9%. Plus, it’s carrying an $818 balance, the smallest of our debts. Thus, with the highest interest rate and lowest balance, it’s a shoe-in for the first we should pay off.

I’ve drawn up our September budget so that we can live entirely on my salary (it’s our plan from now on). Mr. Micah will be making about $1000 a month as take-home pay from September to December (2 classes this semester). So we can use his money entirely for debt-repayment and investing.

Here’s the breakdown of how we’re going to use that money. $250 per month goes into paying off the credit card, until we’re done. Then $250 goes to paying off the car loan. The rest (about) $500 will go into our retirement savings plan…which I’ll have to set up. Until then, it can sit in savings and not be touched.

Goal is to have the retirement plan set up by December, as well.

Budget

I’ll be making $1680 per month in take home pay (approx):

Fixed Expenses
Rent —- $733.00
Utilities —- $29.89
Comcast —- $30.00
World Vision Sponsorship —- $30.00
Account Fee —- $3.00

Variable Expenses
Groceries & Pharmacy —– $250.00
Medicine —- $100
Dates —- $40.00
Business Purchases —- $125.00
Gas/Car —- $160.00
Cell Bill —- $89.70
Joann —- $20.00
Charitable —- $20.00
Misc —- $25.00
Savings —- $21.41

Total
$1680.00

So if we stick to it, we’ll have $21.41 from my own pay to save as well. 🙂 If not, we have a cushion. I also built cushions into several of the variable expenses, just in case. Some of the numbers also reflect specific monthly concerns–like the Car/Gas has an extra $60, because it needed a tune-up/oil change. I’m not actually sure what our gas needs are, since we didn’t track that last month, so I’ve estimated $100 for gas.

More on Monday about my first investment plan. Starting very simple!

Postscript: I used an experience on the metro to write a vignette! Very excited that I was actually able to sit down and write. It was great!! Not necessarily the writing, but the act of writing. I’m trying to figure out how to get more diligent about that, writing every day.

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