Tuesday, December 21, 2010

An Early Christmas Present

What a week we've had!

We've been blessed to attend Mass both the third and fourth Sundays of Advent (thanks, Ray and Mindy!), we've had a great week of miles (a 3000 mile load from Los Angeles to Philadelphia started us off), we're no longer using paper logs (I promise I will dedicate an entire post soon on the ins and outs of logging), at the end of the week we'll be spending Christmas with both of our families, and...

THREE recruiting bonuses will be on our paycheck this Friday, right in time for Christmas, and right in time for us to pay off our LAST credit card! The bonus money is enough that we may even be able to pay off my smallest student loan, all before January 1st! That puts our total debt to date paid of at around $48,000. We truly began paying off our debt in February, so 11 total months so far of paying off our debts equaling $48K is pretty darned AWESOME!

It certainly was slow-going at first, but paying off the smallest debt and getting that monthly payment out of the way really made the next debt easier, and the next and so on. And now, we are completely credit card FREE!

Student loans come next...and boy are there a lot. Ben's undergraduate degree was paid for by the religious community he was part of for 4 years, but his graduate degree, my graduate degree as well as my undergraduate degree are all on the docket for getting paid off. Currently all but two of the loans are in forbearance, which was necessary in order for us to get traction on paying off our truck, car, and credit card debt. The two that are not in forbearance will be the first to get paid off, which will be completed by the end of January. The loans in forbearance will become active again in March, so we'll have the minimum monthly payments start up then, but with all of the other debt gone, we'll be able to throw all extra income after our general monthly expenses at the smallest loan first until the last one is gone. Every day we're getting closer!


Current location: St. Peters, MO (a suburb of St. Louis), making Christmas cookies with Sarah Swaykus
Next load: pick-up in Effingham, IL and drop in Irving, TX (Dallas area)
Miles this week: 5000ish


Things to look for in our next posts: our newfound fascination with jump-roping, and command central inside our truck

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