Update on Finances April 2016

declutteringthestuff financial simplification, , ,

From our original financial simplification post:

Of course, there are certain “purchases” we strongly feel were necessary and must pay for:  home/mortgage ($128,152.60), cars and RV ($16,653.62), college education for our children ($93,628.93).

Grand total: $238,435.15 as of April 1, 2015.  Our goal is to be debt free in 5 years.  Each of these 3 categories were “necessary” in our mind to give our children a stable environment and educational/professional opportunities.  We wouldn’t do anything different in these areas.

A year has passed since we started this blog and we have some financial updates!  We are close to living on one income to speed this along!

  • Cars and RV $9571.89 (decreased balance by $7,081.73)
  • Mortgage $116,445.85 (decreased balance by $11,706.77)
  • Student loans $70,275.14 (decreased balance by $23,353.79)

    Total Debt Reduction = $42,142.29

    Our goal was $47,687.03  John is happy with our current total since we also paid for a wedding last summer for kiddo#1.  Barb is happy with any reduction knowing we had a wedding last summer!!

  • We’ve also been trying to put some into savings each month – right now we have $15,881.84
  •  Last year we had $1,827.58  
  • Total savings in one year = $14,054.26!!  It’s hard to believe we were spending that much extra on “nothing”!!

19 thoughts on “Update on Finances April 2016”

  2. Impressive numbers! Way to go!
    I have found that we have decreased our spending without putting too much effort in to it by simply being aware and keeping track of our expenses. I know we can do much better still, but it’s crazy to think of how much “nothing” we have spent on in the past, eh?

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

      • 🙂 it has been sometime since I bought clothes as well. I need to shop but am waiting for summer. Savings is a struggle at first, but after a while it becomes very enjoyable. I sometimes think how silly I was to throw away my already limited money (especially when I was a student) by not being careful about my expenses. I was always frugal, but not as a smart frugal as I am right now. One day I hope to reduce my mortgage and invest for my retirement more aggressively. Seeing successful examples like you also strengthen my commitment to saving 🙂

        Liked by 3 people

        Reply

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.