Ryan McFarland

In February’s debt report i had $13,811.93 indebtedness.  Actually — that’s not the correct term.  More accurately that is a measure my net worth but ignoring the house (asset and liability), my car (asset), and retirement savings (asset), and Zoom Bikes assets and liabilities.  This short month saw a $4,384.76 reduction in my debt!  I now owe $9,427.17.  In less than 60 days i have knocked $6,223.72 from my debt.

How? A nice tax return helped a lot.  Spending was cut to the bare bones — but we did go out to eat a few times and had a few drinks.  In fact, this month i even put $500 into Zoom Bikes to help with our rent and other payments.  My net balance could have been $8927.17.  In the next few months the bike shop will be able to return that money to me and resume my monthly token income.  I also made just under $600 in income on zieak.com.  Lux Boutique pays a hefty sum toward the mortgage each month in return for the “loan” that was made against the value of the house.

I predict being entirely debt free by the beginning of June.  The goal was to accomplish that in one year.  In June our renter will need to make rent payments again (he paid for six months in advance).  At that time i should be able to make the large extra payments toward the principle of the mortgage.  Consumer Reports did a study that showed moving $100 extra dollars into stock market investments instead of paying down a mortgage each month was a guaranteed better return.  However, during this uncertain economic time the only think that i am certain of is that we’re paying over $1,100 a month in interest on our home.  When we were making the large extra payments the interest amount dropped by around $7 a month (and was increasing).  Now that we’re just paying the exact amount due the interest each month is dropping just over a dollar and increasing slowly.