JUNE 2019 DEBT UPDATE

Hey frugal friends! It’s been a while since I’ve shared a debt update on the blog. This is so for two reasons: (1) I send out a newsletter once a month that shares all of our monthly spending and gives a debt update and (2) we haven’t had much to share since we stopped making aggressive payments on our student loans for 9+ months. Now we are back to making aggressive student loan payments and ready to give you an update!

OUR CURRENT DEBT: $422,000.

We stopped sharing our current debt load while we put our aggressive student loan payments on hold to save up for a dental practice. We purchased the dental practice in April 2019 and took our first pay check from the practice last month. Now that we’re all settled into the dental practice, we’re picking up those aggressive payments again and hope to be debt free by the end of 2021.

WHILE WE STOPPED AGGRESSIVE PAYMENTS, WE ACCRUED $13,683 IN INTEREST. 

We accrued $13,683 in interest during the time that we stopped making aggressive payments, making our total student loan debt $663,683. We accrue close to $25 per day in interest on our loans currently. I hate interest.

WE’VE PAID OFF $241,683!

With that depressing interest stat, on the upside, We’ve paid off $241,683 of debt so far!

Here’s how our spending in June went:

Student loan payment: $40,246.

This is the biggest student loan payment we’ve ever made and it makes me excited and also makes me feel like throwing up at the same time. Our monthly debt payments won’t usually be so high, it’s just that we had some money saved up from saving for the dental practice.

We used Travis from the Student Loan Planner (affiliate link) to help us figure out which student loan repayment plan was right for us and it literally saved us $200,000 on our student loans. We LOVE the Student Loan Planner and it was 1000% the right decision for us (obviously, seeing as how it saved us $200k) but even so, I don’t recommend the Student Loan Planner to everyone. There are definitely student loan borrowers who need it, and some who don’t. Find out if its right for you by reading my honest Student Loan Planner review here. Take a couple minutes out of your day to read about the Student Loan Planner and if it feels right for you, DO IT– it could be life changing for you like it was for us.

Savings: $0.

We have about $10k in savings (about 3 months of living expenses), in addition to retirement, so unless we need to use those funds we won’t be putting money towards savings any time soon.

Rent: $1450. 

We sold our home in Tulsa for a $20k profit (Read about how to sell a house fast here) and decided to rent here in Arizona for a while since the housing market here is a bit unstable and since we weren’t sure where exactly we would want to buy. I’m not opposed to buying a home when you have debt, but it has to make good financial sense to do so. For example, in Tulsa, it was cheaper for us to buy than to rent, and we purposely bought in an area where a new attraction was going in which we predicted would cause the housing market in that area to rise (which it did).

Electricity: $135. 

I expect this bill to just keep going up/staying up the next few months while we bake in Arizona! We participate in our power company’s savings plan where you get a discounted rate on electricity used not during peak hours (anytime besides 3-6pm) in exchange for a really high rate during those hours. So what that means is we basically try not to use electricity during those hours (including air conditioning) which gets real hot. Also, we try to keep our AC set on 80 degrees during the day.

Trash Water Gas: $69.10.

Internet: $50.  

Health Insurance: $495. 

We do a health care sharing ministry as opposed to traditional health insurance. So far we have loved it! You can read more about whether a health care sharing ministry is right for you here.

Car Insurance: $83.33. 

Food & Household Items: $352. 

We try to keep this number under $400 per month, and it includes any consumable item (so things like cleaning supplies, toilet paper, etc is all included in our grocery budget.

Gas: $110. 

Fun: $835.

We went to Sedona for our 10th anniversary trip, bought Danny a smoker for Father’s Day, and got a national parks annual pass. So we’re all set on fun for the year ha. We try to keep our “fun” budget under $100 per month so this number honestly makes me a little sick. But, you live, you learn, right?

Life insurance: $40.

We recently got a life insurance policy with Haven Life Insurance. We’d always made the excuse that since both of us have decent earning potential, if one of us dies, the other one would be OK and so we didn’t really need life insurance. But one night I was laying in bed and it hit me like a ton of bricks. What if BOTH of us die?? What would our son do? And we got a life insurance policy the very next day– Haven had the best deal we could find and is a subsidiary of MassMutual so we knew we could trust them.

Retirement: $0. 

We’re hoping to start saving for retirement again next month– just minimum payments while we are paying off debt.

Vacation Sinking Fund: $0. 

We’ll resume our vacation sinking fun next month and start saving for Christmas too.

Total spending: $3619.10

This list doesn’t include our spending on taxes, tithing, and business expenses and those can run high.

How did your budgeting go in June? Comment below. I’d love to hear from you! 

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