Check Baby 1, 2, 3, 4

No Spend Day #1 was a success! Not a penny spent and I managed to cross all 4 things off my list. The most difficult was definitely #4 on not buying lunch or tea. The lunch part was fine as I brought it but the tea was surprisingly harder since I did get a few cravings for my venti China green tips tea from Starbucks. They are obviously Stars at getting my bucks and are awfully cheeky for putting it directly in their name like that. Yesterday I prevailed.

Must celebrate the small victories.

So, there was an exciting update yesterday when I called about my student loan. I was thinking I owed around $7,500 - $7,100. Nope! It's at $6,653.49. So that's great news because it moves me below $20k debt line. I feel like I'm improving already.

I also went through and figured out what percentage of interest was being charged on each of my debts and it breaks down like this,

CIBC Visa - $1,936.44 @ 19.5%
TD Visa - $6,150.56 @ 9.4% (P + 6.9%)
Line of Credit: $6,208.11 @ 8.25% interest (P + 5.75%)
Student Loan - $6,653.49 @ 5% (P + 2.5%)

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My Plan of Attack

1) Start at the top first. Reduce everything down to a minimum payment and funnel all the extra cash to the top level debt. As that gets paid off, move down to debt #2, etc.

2) Aim for 2 no-spend days per week (Tuesday's & Thursday's). If I have plans and can't do it on a day that starts with T I must substitute it for another day that week. I am able to plan ahead and "bank" no spend days if I need to but not the other way around.

3) Continue to buy my groceries every week and bring my lunch to work.

4) Set-up all my debt & bill payments to take place automatically.

5) Leave my credit cards at home and use debit.

6) Monitor my bank account to make sure it stays in the black.

7) Live pay cheque to pay cheque. That means at the end of every pay period, transfer any $$ I have left over to my top level debt and start fresh with my new pay cheque. If there is an emergency or unanticipated urgent expense, I can use my credit card if I must.

8) Transfer the $700.00 or so dollars free on my line of credit to my top level debt. As I make the minimum payment on this and the balance decreases, continue to transfer the balance up the debt chain until I reach the point when I start paying this loc debt back.
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I think it's an achievable plan, reasonable and not overly extreme. My goals for today are,

* Send in the old expense claim form for S that been sitting in our kitchen cupboard since summertime.

*Submit the benefit form for the massage I had yesterday.

* Do my expenses at work.

* Bring lunch and snacks to work.

Today's bank account balance: $424.34

J. Money & Krystalatwork, thanks so much for the warm welcome and encouragement! I was so happy when I saw your notes and really appreciate the support. Go team.