I've been totally obsessed with PF blogs these past few weeks and have decided it's a great medium to be honest and accountable for our money. BF and I are getting married this year and I've always felt our debt is getting out of control but now we have the added stress of trying to pay for a $25k wedding as well!
Our debt is pretty scary.
Here's the ugly truth:
Credit Card 1: $3632 (Joint card - 19% - mostly things for house and BF's school fees/text books)
Credit Card 2: $4654 (Joint card - 13% - same as CC1)
Credit Card 3: $3758 (My card - 13% - left over debt from uni days and i used to have too many direct debits like insurance come off it)
Credit Card 4: $3279 (My card - 13%)
Credit Card 5: $7746 (His card - 13% - consolidated debt from other CCs)
Credit Card 6: $895 (His card - 12% - a few recent purchases for our pergola)
Store Card: $1687 (His gym set - 0% until Nov 2011)
Home Loan 1: $53,110 (Variable, currently 5.71%)
Home Loan 2: $206,832 (Fixed, currently 7.45%, becomes unfixed in May 2010)
Car Loan 1: $14,483 (my 2003 car, worth about $17,000)
TOTAL? A whopping $300,076!!!!
Jeezus! This doesn't even include my HECS but I as that is paid directly out of my pay before I see it, and is pretty much interest free except for inflation, I won't include it as a debt. (Altho it's up around $30k - I did two degrees.)
However, like I said, this year we are getting married and we've estimated the wedding will cost us just over $25,000. This is a lot of money to come up with in 8 months!
How did we get here?!
Now BF and I both have decent wages, so making repayments isn't a problem. We live pretty lavish lives and very rarely are left wanting. However we're not really working towards lowering our debt - I get paid monthly and always put a chunk on the cards but then we just keep spending on them. We have the wrong mentality so when a purchase is greater than $100 we tend to put it on the credit card, and then we're really bad at transferring money back onto the card.
But this is all starting to change. I've been quoted as saying "if we can get to this end of the year and have the wedding of our dreams without accruing any extra debt, then i'll be happy". Of course, I'd prefer to pay some debt back aswell, but my primary goal is to make the repayments we have to make while saving for the wedding.
The point of this blog is to keep me accountable, and give me a place to monitor our spending and saving achievements - i'm not convinced that anyone will be interested in what I've got to say, but in case anyone is reading this; welcome!
We Bought a Used Car
2 days ago
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