Getting Ahead of the Bills

It’s March 12th and, other than my wife’s cell phone bill, all our bills for March have been paid.  I get paid tomorrow and there isn’t anything that *MUST* be paid in the next week.  It’s been a long time since I could say that!

I’ve already submitted a payment for the first bill due in April, but the rest of my check I intend to save for now, since we are taking a short trip out of town to visit our oldest daughter in a few weeks.  In years past, those drives to the next state usually involved gas and a hotel room put on a credit card.  All gas and food bought on this trip will be paid in cash.  My daughter has moved into a house with a guest room, so we don’t need a hotel now.

Other financial updates:

• I did one more balance transfer to move more debt to the 12 month 0% interest offer I received to further reduce the amount of interest we pay per month.
• The transfers have altered the way our debt snowball looks, so I will be rearranging the order the debts will be paid soon.
• Yesterday, I made a spreadsheet to try to predict when each bill would be paid off.  If my math is correct,  all my debts other than my wife’s car will be paid off, by January 2011.  The car could be paid off by June 2011.  This is all based on the amounts I’m paying now.  If I can earn more or cut other expenses, this could all be accelerated.  When I first made my debt chart at the No Credit Needed Network, I listed December 2011 as my goal to get this debt paid off.  I’m now going to challenge myself to get it done by December 2010, which is 6 months less than what my spreadsheet calculated.