My Husband is out of Credit Card Debt

When I was running the numbers for my update post, I realized something. The two credit cards we have remaining are both in my name only. So technically, on paper, my husband no longer has any credit card debt.

We didn’t really plan for this to happen, and it’s all my doing anyway. He doesn’t deal with the day-to-day finances or payment plan, and I devised it based solely on interest rates. When I opened our 0% Citibank card last fall, I used my name only because it was easier, and the money transferred was from the one card that is in his name only. So now that the Discover card is paid off, he has no more credit card debt.

His interest rates were only a few points higher than mine, and that’s most likely due to his student loans, which are 3 times larger than mine are. That and my obsession with calling my cards and negotiating lower interest rates, which he does not share.

Now my husband has a head start on me in improving his credit score, which is going to come in handy pretty soon…

Where Did Summer Go?

I can’t believe it’s the end of August already. Labor Day is right around the corner. This summer has been crazy, but strangely, for no particular reason. Work has taken over my weekdays completely, and every weekend it seems like there’s somewhere to go (and sleep to catch up on!).

Our credit card debt currently stands at $7880.64, split between 2 cards:

• Mastercard (9.99%) - $4424.64
• Citibank (0.00%) - $3456.00

We are so close to being done with this beast that I can taste it! We’ve been through a lot of ups and downs, but we’ve never been below $10,000 since we began our journey out of the hole. We are in the home stretch now, and we’re going to sprint to the finish. The plan is to be completely credit card debt free by the end of September. It’s going to take a lot of concentration and effort, but we are determined.

We have imposed a spending freeze until we are out of debt, save for our normally budgeted items. All our extra money will be thrown at the cards. The only problem is, I don’t know which card to pay off first. The 0% promotion ends on September 25. I am ashamed to say I don’t know what happens to the remaining balance at that time. Does it just then accrue interest? Or does it back-charge interest for the total amount on the card (which was $5100) for the entire year? That’s not a risk I’m willing to take. I have been splitting our payments equally between the two cards, and when it gets closer to the end date, I’ll pay the Citibank off first. This will also help keep me motivated and aware of our September 30^th deadline.