December 2015 Progress

 Happy New Year!

 

Welcome to 2016.  December ended pretty much as we expected.  Work was luckily quiet for the last week and I was able to take a couple of weeks out of the office for the holiday.  We took it easy at home for the most part but did travel for a few days to visit family and friends.

It almost didn’t feel like the Christmas season with all of the warm weather and crazy amounts of rain that we had.  Getting into a festive mood was a little difficult but we managed to push through it and made some good memories for the kids.  Hopefully, we’ll see some cold soon… at least for a little while.

Current Goal Status:
  • Reduce overall outstanding debt (including mortgage) by 10%.
    1. At the end of December, overall debt reduction is 10.6%.  We met the goal for the year!
  • Make contributions to investments (taxable and retirement) of 10% of salary.
    1. Combined saving in investment accounts totaled 10.37%.  We met our goal for the year!
  • Eliminate any monthly interest payments due to credit cards.
    1. December returned us to a no interest month.  That finished the year with 8 of 12 months having no interest accumulation.
    2. The $2200 remaining on the credit card was eliminated by the proceeds from the RSU sale.
    3. Our last remaining credit card balance of $7180 is on a 0% interest promotional offer card that runs out on January 22.  I’ll need to figure out how I’m handling that.  There will be a follow-up post on this topic.

Total expenses for December climbed to $8763 which was right in the middle for the year.  Net cash flow after paying off the credit card balance was still pretty good at ~$800.

I’ve already posted my Goals for 2016 which I may update to include a couple more personal goals for the year.  We’re also talking about making some repairs/changes to the house which could affect that.  More on that later.

Hear’s hoping that you have health, wealth, and happiness in 2016.

Cheers!

-cb3

2 thoughts on “December 2015 Progress”

  1. Paying down 10% of debt including your mortgage is a great accomplishment. Nice work there. For the credit card debt, you could open another card that has a promotional 0% interest on transfers. Just a thought. This way you can delay your payoff time without owing interest.

  2. I’ve been thinking about whether or not I should do another transfer. I was browsing around and there are several offers for cards with 0% interest and no transfer fee. There’s also (most likely) bonus money coming in Feb that could knock the whole balance out. I hesitate to count on money before it’s in the account and I’d end up paying a month of interest if I wait.

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