I don't like debt and other than our mortgage and cars we don't really have any debt. I also don't like having to pay a fee for something that could be free. For example, I refuse to use an ATM any place but my bank b/c I refuse to pay the small free other banks charge you. I refuse to have a credit card with an annual fee.
We have one credit card that we use for gas and various other things, but we ALWAYS pay it off at the end of the month. Really the only reason we use it is for the points. It's a Chase Freedom card and for every 5,000 points you can get $50. We usually build up the points until we can get $200 and then redeem them and as long as we pay the card off every month it's not costing us a penny to use it or get the points. So in the long run, it's like we are getting paid to use our credit card to buy stuff we were going to buy any way.
In just under 2 months from now, my car will be paid off. I couldn't be more thrilled and we already have a plan on where to put the money from my car payment every month. It's all I can do to not take the money out of our savings account and just pay it off today.
We also have a Best Buy credit card that we are still paying on. Those people give you like 4 years no interest....how can you turn that down when needing to buy a new TV. Instead of taking a chunk from our savings account at the time we decided to just pay a small amount twice a month and make sure to have it paid off at least a few months before the no interest off ran out. The plan was to have this paid off by June, but Scott thinks maybe we should just pay it off in March when we pay my car off and knock out 2 things at once.
Once my car and the Best Buy CC are paid off, we are going to put that money towards our 2nd mortgage and get that paid off. We ended up with a 2nd mortgage b/c when we were building our house we decided to put in a swimming pool which was not part of the original plan and it couldn't be added to the construction loan. This also helped us avoid having to pay a PMI for a longer period of time (which is a whole other story).
Happy Budgeting!
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2 comments:
I love reading about how others budget and set money goals. Congrats on your very limited debt! You seem to know what you are doing with the car and tv! :)
That's awesome that you're so on top of your debt! We try to do the same. We use our credit card a lot, but only b/c of the air miles!
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