$11.94. Yep, that is how much we reduced our debt by last week. Not good. Putting our snowball on hold to cover our escrow shortage of $798 did not sit well with me, and that is where the $11.94 came into play. I just had to reduce our debt by something, no matter how small! I cashed out what little I had in my Amazon M-Turks account and then sent exactly that amount to our Visa. Crazy, huh?
Why the Visa and not the Citi? Two reasons. One, it had to do not wanting to throw off the nice (scratch that, there is nothing nice about debt!) round balance of the Citi. The second being that the Visa already has an oddball number as it is the debt with interest. Since $11.94 wasn’t going to move the needle all the much, it may as well be the Visa to get a smidge extra.
Now with the escrow shortage accounted for (I still need to mail the check) and a somewhat slightly clearer picture of our finances for the month, the debt reduction gloves are again inching their way off. Today I scheduled a $100 payment to hit our Citi account on Tuesday. Not nearly close the $300 weekly reduction I like to see, but $100 is still far better than the $54 statement balance minimum. And, ahem, better than the $11.94 reduction our Visa saw last week.
As for the remainder of January, how much we pay off will depend on how much we take home. Yes, insert “challenges of an irregular income.” One thing is for sure though, no matter how small the amount, we will continue reducing our debt by something! Progress is still progress, even if it is only $11.94.
For those of you battling debt (or those of you who have already won the battle), what is the smallest amount you have ever sent to a creditor?
I sent less than 2 dollars to a creditor. It’s not as crazy as it sounds. I had mis-read the amount to be paid off, thus sent the wrong amount, then saw a dollar-something still left on the account. I hurried and sent the rest!
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Good thing you caught it. No doubt they would have added more to your balance had you not done so.
You did something which is better then nothing. It all adds up over time.
That is what I keep telling myself!
Its funny, I think it is great you sent that amount just so you know in your head you sent SOMETHING, I just have a problem doing it myself. I have OCD (doctor diagnosed, not just myself, lol), and I think in my head if I can’t send the whole amount (monthly amount, not total) I can’t send anything – there is just something that won’t let me do it. If I can pay MORE on it when it is due I can do that, but tend not to send small amounts. I know in theory this is ridiculous, just part of my wonderful OCD that won’t let me do it.
Doesn’t sound ridiculous at all. Interesting how your OCD works. Here’s hoping you can always pay more than the what is owed to your debt!
I’m glad to hear you say that something is better than nothing because we were in a similar situation when our credit card closed this month. Most of this billing cycle happened when I was paying for Christmas so in order to cash flow Christmas, very little was sent to debt. This month, our credit card balance only decreased by $50 but I was so happy it was something! (And more importantly, that it didn’t increase!)
You made it through the month without adding debt and even paid off $50. I call that a win. You are going in the right direction!
Every little bit counts! Way to go on continuing to make progress even if it is just a small amount!
I figure something is still better than nothing. It all adds up!
I totally relate to this. It drives me *crazy* when we can’t make a significant dent in our debt in a given month – even when it is totally clear that we need to deploy our money elsewhere.
A decrease is a decrease, though. Great work!
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Weeks/months like this are painful, aren’t they? Sigh. Here’s hoping for better weeks to come!