Mid November Update: 1 Credit Card Paid Off!

I really need to write in here more often. Well, several big things happened to my family's finances this month. First of all, the month of October 2008 was our best month yet budget-wise. We pretty much stayed within the budget. We always go a little over budget, but this time it was really minor, about $20 over budget. This meant we had a lot more to put toward debt repayment in November. On November 5th, we paid off our Bank of America Credit Card Debt. I am so happy about that! This was our highest interest rate credit card, at 15% interest not too long ago. They have been lowering our interest rate as we've been paying it down though. It is such a relief to see that card at $0.00 owed. I hope I never need to charge anything on that card again, because I personally don't like Bank of America, and would rather stick to my local credit union for banking. We've had this card for 8 years though, it started off as Fleet or Fleet Boston or something, and it just kept getting sold in mergers and the interest rate kept going up. I am just SO HAPPY to have that card paid off!

My husband received a significant pay raise at work this past month, this will give us even more money to pay off the debt. When I entered all of my remaining debt into my chart, I saw that we've paid off over 50% of the debt we had in September, 2007 when I began this blog! This is amazing. At this rate, I hope all of our debt is gone well before the September, 2010 goal date.

The remaining debt is now on just 1 credit card and 1 student loan (and of course 1 mortgage, but that's not in my chart). We're going to aim at the last credit card for the rest of 2008, and the beginning of 2009. I have to say that I am proud of myself for working to get so much debt paid off. But, I'm even more proud of my husband for really improving his spending habits and working so hard to deserve that raise which will bring us more income. He is an amazing man, and we'd certainly still be drowning in debt if we weren't working together to budget and focus on debt repayment. This was our most successful debt repayment month yet. I know the next couple of months will be a little harder with the holidays, but I think we're on track to really eliminate that next credit card balance soon!