Day 3| Paid: $0 | Remaining Debt: $63,117.27
Today I want to dig a little deeper into the specific debts. First lets start with the easier ones.
After yesterdays depressing realization I need to start with something light today. These are not quite in the order that I have listed above, they are simply in the order that I feel like talking about them.
Phone: In 2020 I upgraded my own IPhone SE to the newish IPhone 2020. I financed it for $549.99 with a 0% interest rate (as long as I stayed on AT&T’s plan). As of today I have paid of $348.46 and have $201.53 remaining. I pay $18.34 each month as part of my cell phone bill. That is scheduled to be paid off in October. Since it is a relatively small monthly payment, with 0% interest, and already included in my cell phone bill this isn’t a debt I am going to pay too much attention to or rush to pay off. However when October rolls around and my cell phone bill is $18 less I plan on taking that extra and putting it towards either another debt or savings depending on how I am progressing with my plan.
Orthodontics: I first got braces in 7th grade. My teeth were messed up. The braces worked wonders and my teeth and overbite straightened out, but I hated wearing the retainer afterward. Absolutely hated it. So I am sure things never got fully corrected, and over the past 23 years my teeth have shifted and became messed up again. Most notable was the gap between my two front teeth. I was very self-conscious of it and decided I wanted to do something about it. I knew it would be expensive to get orthodontic work done but I decided it was worth it. So in January 2021 I bit the bullet and got Byte aligners. They are amazing and have done wonders for my teeth. I feel much better about things, it was worth it. But the process was expensive. The total cost was $3074.00. I put a down payment of $449 and financed the remainder of the $2625.00 balance with Byte at a 7.74% interest rate and a monthly payment of $99.54. I will owe $1687.76, and even though the treatment is almost complete I will be paying until 2023. However once it is fully paid I should be able to recoup some of the costs from my dental insurance plan, but unfortunately at this point I still have to pay out of pocket. However this is one debt that I do not feel bad about at all. Yes I would have preferred to be able to pay in cash up front, but the improvements this has made to my life makes the debt well worth it, and because of the relatively low interest rate (compared to some of the massive interest rates coming up) I have this set as a low priority debt and plan to continue to pay the minimums for now.
If your teeth are janky and you are interested in trying Byte aligners I highly recommend them. Please use this referral link:
Afterpay: December can be a tough month financially for many people. Between Christmas shopping and holiday travel many people rack up their credit card debt just to make it through the holidays. I am no different (but I need to be different next year). November and December can be especially difficult for me. Although I generally don’t purchase gifts for many people, the number of people that I felt a need to buy for grew this year, and both my girlfriend and my step-father’s birthdays are in December. I feel like I was able to find the perfect gifts for everyone this year, but that means spending a little more than the cash I had on hand. So I used Afterpay for a few of the gifts I was purchasing from the same store. If you don’t know Afterpay is one of the many apps/sites in the burgeoning Buy Now Pay Later marketplace, which also includes Affirm, Klarna, and others. Fortunately this purchase was interest free, so this truly was simply spreading the total payment out over 8 weeks. I am sure there is a hidden cost somewhere that I am unaware of, but for me it meant that I was able to purchase a few gifts from the same store for a total of $208, I paid $52 at the time of the order, and continue to pay $52 every two weeks until the balance is paid. At this time I have two payments remaining, one on January 12th, and the final payment on January 26. Since this is 0% interest and the payments will be complete by the end of this month I am not rushing to pay this off, however once it is paid off I need to consider adding this bi-weekly payment of $52 to my debt snowball.
Affirm 1 and Affirm 2: Affirm, like Afterpay, is another Buy Now Pay Later program. However unlike Afterpay it breaks the payments down into monthly payments. I am not sure how the algorithm works but they do charge an interest rate. In my case 29.99% for one and 29.98% for the other. The first purchase was for a new laptop – my old one was completely busted and I desperately needed a new one. So I purchased one using Affirm credit for a total of $830 (I went for the cheapest laptop that fit my needs). Following the payment plan I would pay a total of $140.96 in interest for a total cost of $969.23 paid over 12 monthly payments of $80.91, with the final payment being $79.22. I don’t feel too bad about this debt – I severely needed a new computer and it would have taken my months to save up enough to purchase one. Of course I am not happy about this debt, but it could have been worse. Since this will be paid off before my upcoming debt snowball can ever reach it I am just going to continue to pay it off at the planned schedule and then roll that monthly payment into my snowball or savings.
The second Affirm loan I am less proud of. One of my favorite brands discontinued my favorite line of their products. However they were still available online from Target. So I splurged last summer and purchased a total of $430.03 worth. The loan terms included total interest payments of $72.95 for a total cost of $502.98 payable over 12 monthly payments of $41.92 (last payment $41.86). I am scheduled to pay this off in June of this year. I plan to continue paying the minimum monthly unless I somehow miraculously manage to get my debt snowball down to this loan in time. Otherwise I will just pay it off on schedule and roll that $41.92 into my snowball or savings.
That is it for today. I will continue my deep dive into my debt tomorrow with my Credit Cards