July 2019: I had $2,800 in credit card debt that dated back to 2017. My family and I moved into a new house and needed to purchase a washer & dryer on a newly opened credit card. This credit card was offering interest free loaning for 18 months. The washer and dryer set us back another $1,400. Debt Left: $4,200.00
August: Started thinking about how much credit card debt I was carrying around and hashed a plan to take care of it before the Summer of 2020. Doubled up on minimum balance and researched the option to complete a balance transfer. Debt Left: $4,085.00
September: Transferred the $2,800 credit card balance (about 24% interest rate, if I remember right) to a credit card that was offering a 0% interest rate for 12 months. This basically meant that I had 12 months to pay off the transferred balance without paying interest and if I couldn’t meet that deadline, I’d have to pay back interest on the entire transfer amount. Debt Left: $3,820.00
October-January 2020: We continued our double payments and started to look for more ways to find the extra money to attack our debt faster. We minimized out to eat trips and online shopping. During this time we were able to pay our $3,820.00 debt down by $1,080! Debt Left: $2,740.00
February: As part of our debt repayment plan we vowed to dedicate $1,400.00 of our tax check to the cause. I believe because we made it a priority, it was a lot easier to let that money go. Debt Left: $1,340.00
March: As with the tax check, I am lucky enough to get a yearly bonus at my job and I knew that I would dedicate 100% of that to paying off the rest of our credit card debt. Debt Left: $0.00!!!!!
And there you have it! In 9 months we paid off a total of $4,200 of credit card debt!