Welcome to the first official Broke on Purpose Payoff Report of 2017 (the December roundup doesn’t count). I’ll be honest. I’ve had blinders on this entire month, between “he who must not be named” and grinding away at my dissertation I’ve just been focused on one thing, and that’s trying to maintain a sense of sanity. This is why you don’t see our signature duo picture above. I didn’t even realize January was over! It’s been a hard few weeks for me mentally. I do a lot on social media as part of my side jobs and logging in has just been exhausting. It’s so easy to get caught up in all the fearmongering that you suddenly begin to question your own existence. The internet can be a hard place to hangout right now. It seems like no matter which app you sign into there is something posted that is going to stress you out. I’ve been practicing loads of self-care by unplugging. Trust me; it’s okay to disconnect. Whatever you missed out on will be there the next day. My choice for self-care has been to get lost in a good novel. I’ve actually read so many books these past two months that I signed up for Kindle Unlimited. For around $10.99/month I can read as many books as I want. I’ve found it to be the perfect way to decompress.
Books I’m Reading: Queen Sugar, Legend of Muirwood, Joe Dillard Series
Now I have a confession to make. This month we overspent in the dining out category and ended up using grocery money to cover our eating escapades. This is definitely not okay, and I knew it wasn’t okay, but yet I let the behavior go on. I could just chalk it up to good ol’ self-care, but yea no. We messed up. This month we’re really going to have to rein things in meaning even when I’m home writing I need to get up and prep a lunch as if I were going to work. I’m going to hold Mr. Broke On Purpose accountable here also because he aided me by running out to get lunch.
Enough of the small talk though let’s get to the good stuff.
[ad name=”HTML”]THE BREAKDOWN
GREAT LAKES STUDENT LOAN STARTING BALANCE $18,373.25
New Balance: $13,313
Amount towards debt: $2535.00
Amount paid since living Broke on Purpose (22 months): $69,354
The amount we were able to pay off wasn’t too bad even though I didn’t bring in that much extra this month. While I would love to see at least a $3000 payoff every month, I’m learning to be happy keeping the momentum going no matter how big or small. Hopefully, in February’s payoff report, we’ll be at or under the $10,000 mark and well on our way to getting this loan paid off by April 2017 by using some of our income tax return money.
I know many of you got started on your own Broke on Purpose Journey’s this year, so I’m eager to hear how your first month went. What’s got you excited for February, tell me about your wins no matter how big or small.
