Six Figure Debt

We aren’t desperate enough to burn the furniture, but we have so many unnecessary “things” laying around the house that we have accumulated over the years that it is time to get rid of the crap. I’ve already sold some of unnecessary furniture on Craig’s list. It was an item that we purchased a couple of years ago and haven’t even used ONCE since we’ve had it, so it’s gone to a good home and I am $300. richer. I sold it for the exact same amount as I paid for it.

My taxes were finished today and we were delighted to hear that we will get almost $15,000 back from the Federal government.  This doesn’t include the $1,800 we will receive as part of Bush’s economic stimulus package.

 We got the generous return because of the losses we suffered in the sale of two houses in 2007.  Believe me, we aren’t having too much withheld.

So, here is the plan for the $17000.00 windfall.

1.  Pay off the credit card with the lowest balance, currently $4,100.  This will allow us to snowball an extra $86.00 a month toward our debt reduction.  Combines with my car payment that ends in May, we will have $520 a month to snowball on the next credit card.

I was reading a newspaper online the other day and came across an article explaining when and how I was going to receive my “economic stimulus” tax refund.  According to my social security number, my check will be mailed to me on May 9.  We should get $1800, $600 each for my wife and I and $300 each for my two children.  While $1800 is not a huge amount of money, it is a nice chunk of change to throw at our debt.

Our debt reduction plans took a small hit this week as we were hit with $300. in unexpected medical bills.  It isn’t anything we can’t handle but it put a serious crimp in our debt repayment this month.  Looks like the minimum payments for at least one of the three credit cards.  We will still make a double payment on the home equity line of credit.

I will update you on our debt this week; we did manage to take a chunk out of our debt, reducing our HELOC by $800, cutting a few hundred of each of the three credit cards and even adding a few hundred dollars to our emergency fund.

This is easy for the wife and I, we are very focused on our goals.  They are…..in order!

1.  Eliminate 25% of our total revolving debt.  This amounts to about 25k between January 1, 2008 and December 31, 2008.  We can do this, we are making enough money and have more on the way when our small business opens in March 2008.  In addition my other Internet sites are beginning to show a serious profit, maybe as much as 20k in 2008.

While I attack my debt I am also exploring options to make extra money on-line.  Here are 5 that I have used and have already starting to see a little income from after just a month.

1.  Blogging.  There are many ways to monetize your blog.  The best for me so far is Google Adsense.  I haven’t made any money off this site yet, but the traffic is growing and I hope to see some revenue soon.  My other blogs make close to $1000 a month.