Day 12| Paid: $1150.36 | Remaining Debt: $61998.08
As I have mentioned in my previous posts, my original goal for 2022 is to eliminate all of my debt except for my student loans and car loan.
However both my student loan and car loan are currently behind in payments, so I also want to get back on track and paying those on time. And of course I have to maintain the minimum payments on those loans as well.
Adding up the remainder of my debt, plus the late payments and minimum payments for those loans, that gives me a total goal of $27,157.65
(I already paid off that first pay day loan in a lump sum on January 7th, so I am removing that $1062.50 from all of these calculations)
Of course that $27,157.65 does not include any additional interest accruals. At this point I honestly can’t figure out what the interest is going to be. SOme of the loans have variable interest rates that change depending on my remaining balance, and the amount I will need to pay on interest for any of these debts will vary depending on how much extra I am able to pay toward the principal each month. I know there are calculators and spreadsheets out there that can figure this out for you. I have tried them out, but none of them seem to work, they don’t seem to allow different payment schedules in their calculations.
So in order to keep things easy for myself, even if it is not exact, I am going to round things up and say that my goal for 2022 is to pay $30,000 towards my debt.
I don’t know if that will cover all the interest that will accrue, leaving me with only the student and car loans left for 2023. However even if I do have some other debt left over I will be incredibly happy if I am able to put $30,000 towards my debt this year.
Breaking It Down
Goal: $30,000 worth of debt payments in 2022
That comes out to $2500 a month.
For months with 4 weeks that is $625 a week
Of course not all months have 4 weeks, and since I get paid weekly I do tend to think in weekly terms. So divided up into 52 weeks it comes out to a little under $577 a week. Of course we are already into the second week of January, so if I average it out over 51 weeks it is about $588 a week.
Basically I need to pay $588 a week, on average, towards my debt to hit my goal.
That is a lot of money. Especially considering my combined expenses and minimum debt payments are already more than my income from my primary job.
However I don’t think it will actually be as much of a stretch as it seems at first glance.
Right now my minimum monthly payments on my debt are $2088.38. That means to hit my goal I only need to find an additional $411.62 a month to hit my monthly target of $2500. That is not so bad. Especially if I am able to bring in about $200 a week from Uber, or about $800 a month. Half of that Uber money will go towards that additional debt payments, and the other half can go towards closing the gap between my income and expenses.
It is not fun, but it is doable, and I am going to get it done.