introduction -- my situation

[DrSavin]

Wow! What a difference toenailzz. If you keep that up, you'll be out of debt before you know it.

Once you're done, you should pretend you still have to pay them off, except this time you should just throw it into a high interest savings and a retirement fund.

[bjl584]

Is your credit good enough to qualify for a balance transfer to a 0% card?

[DavidBibby]

Another update:

I threw another $1k at the higher balance, higher rate card.

I'm now at:

CC1: 6169
CC2: 5732
----------
ttl: 11901

getting there

Short-term goal is still down to $10k by the end of September.

Toenailzz,

You are doing great! A lot of people ask if it's better to pay off debt THIS WAY or THAT WAY.. but the bottom line is... you need to do it in whatever way works FOR YOU!

Congrats for getting your 9k CC1 down to 6k. Keep it up and you'll be out of debt in no time!

[toenailzz]

Is your credit good enough to qualify for a balance transfer to a 0% card?

It is, and I get offers semi-regularly. But in my recent experience all of the offers charge at least 3% on the amount you transfer. So, I'm holding off. 5.99% isn't great, but it's also not outrageous, and that's the card I'm focusing fire on right now. That rate is good until April or May 2011. I may have it paid in full before then. If not, I'll start looking at other BT offers a month or two before this one expires.

[LuxLiving]

Can you transfer the 5.99% balance or a part of it onto the 1.99% w/o a big fee? I'd crunch the numbers. Good job getting that balance down. I agree w/the others about not saving up huge chunks before paying it down.

While I don't advocate debting, here's how my thinking went on this subject until I got things turned around. Yes, I was wishing we had a bigger e-fund at that time, BUT if, God forbid, there were some minor catastrophe, ie, hot water tank went out or frig went cablooey, tranny went out on the car) there is still the CC to fall back upon. (Disclaimer: ONLY do this IF you are truly committed to no debting for non-emergency items.) Get your e-fund up to a tolerable level and then blast away at those *&%! CC balances! And then pack that e-fund parachute fully.

I'll say what I've said here many times before, we put our income $'s into a 3 pronged approach, PAST, PRESENT and FUTURE.

PAST - debt paydown (here we threw as much as possible, while still covering the others)
PRESENT - a tiny bit of fun along w/daily living
FUTURE - savings/retirement

Good luck. I think you are on the right track.

P.S. re: Smoking. Hubster did it for 40 some years and tried many times & ways to quit - and quit he finally did (YA-LA-LEW-YAAAAAAAAH!!!) using Ondamed technology. Many haven't heard of it, so putting it out there as a possibility for you and others.

[littleroc02us]

Hey man, basically what your doing is very rewarding when you achieve the goal. It took me 4 years to knock off 50k and it felt awesome to say "see ya". Living debt free is pretty sweet. I had some lady ask me how I could take a vacation and where is the money coming from. I was like, ah I have no debt and I still have the same job. Easy, I pay cash and don't have to worry about payments and interest and all that crap.

[solvemybadcredit]

Great job! I would actually first concentrate on eliminating the debt, reducing the interest and then save! If you earn 4% on the savings and pay 16 on the card, you constantly lose 12% per year!