Happy Christmas

When my family is all together for the Christmas holiday, we spend as much time as we can together carrying on our traditions. On the Eve of Christmas, the three girls open one small gift, and snuggle up to watch our favorite holiday classic: Muppet Christmas Carol. This year, our DVD copy remained buried in our storage unit, so instead we opted for Super 8 via Dad's new blu ray player. Snuggles, laughter, and silly talk ensued. It's definitely one of my favorite things about Christmas.

Hope you all had a lovely holiday surrounded by family and friends.

xoxo,
PJ

Financial Fitness: Debt

As discussed here, when Hubby and I moved in with family, our focus was to pay off all of our consumer debt within our timeframe of 12 months. We set a specific dollar amount goal to have paid off by May of 2012. For this installment of "financial fitness", we're on to discussing our debt payoff plan.

Step One AKA “the eye-opener”: We took stock of all of our debts from various places including general credit card debt, department stores, medical statements, etc. We created a spreadsheet with all of our debts and included the following:

• The debt source {name of department store, credit card, etc.}


• Current balance


• Interest rate {if promotional rate, the date that the promotional rate ends}


• Minimum payment due

Step Two: We then organized our debt from smallest to biggest. We did not pay attention to the interest rate. This is a philosophy I was very skeptical about when we first started. I thought it would make the most sense to pay off higher interest rate debts first. However, it proved successful as we maintained our motivation to pay off debt. The results are fast, as it is easier to knock out the lower balance debts.

Here is an example of debts from least to greatest including balance, interest, and minimum payment amounts:

Debt	Balance	Interest	Minimum
One	$350.00	11.00%	$35.00
Two	$500.00	7.00%	$30.00
Three	$500.00	10.00%	$40.00
Four	$700.00	7.00%	$35.00
Five	$700.00	10.00%	$30.00
Six	$850.00	7.90%	$35.00
Seven	$4,000.00	9.99%	$30.00
Total Debt	$7,600.00		$235.00

Note: To add all the columns together, simply apply the "sum" formula to give a total for all selected columns.

Step Three: Now that debts are arranged from least to greatest, we tallied up the minimum payments for each card. Then, we took the amount that we set for debt payments from our budget, minus the minimum payments. This gave us the extra amount to apply to our debt. It ends up looking like this {this example uses the debt breakdown above}:

$900 {debt budget}

- $235 {minimum payments}

= $665 {extra debt payment}

Step Four: We then add the “extra” to the minimum payment of the first debt {the smallest debt}. Repeat every month to knock out debt from smallest to largest. This creates a “rolling” effect that accelerates the debt payment process.

An example of rolling debt payments:

Debt	Minimum	Extra	Revised
One	$35.00	665	$695.00
Two	$30.00	665 + 35	$730.00
Three	$40.00	665 + 30 + 35	$770.00

If “revised” amount is greater than debt owed, simply apply to the next debt. As debts are paid off, we continue to roll the minimum payments from the previous debt to achieve a greater revised payment for the current debt.

{Rinse. Repeat Step Four. Every Month.}

Note: This is a series on the blog to share our path to financial fitness. We are no experts in personal finance. We are, however, on our way to becoming smart{er} consumers.

CBN Tribute Party Recap: Food Demo

Wednesday night, I had the opportunity to attend the Chicago Blogger Network party hosted at Tribute. Prior to the main event, myself and three other food-lovers participated in a behind-the-scenes demo from Tribute's own Executive Chef: Jared Case. Chef Case prepared a Tribute speciality: The Big Nasty. Complete with homemade cheesy biscuits, fried chicken, sausage gravy, and cheese. Can you say "heart attack"?! We had a blast learning new techniques to achieve perfect sausage gravy and fried chicken. Chef Case is charming, hilarious, and was so kind to answer questions about what he was doing, and more importantly, why he was doing it. It was one of the most delicious of culinary treats I have ever laid taste buds on!

{Executive Chef: Jared Case}

{Pastry Chef making the biscuits}

{Fellow bloggers: Kelly, Lori, and Christina}

{Building The Big Nasty}

{Still Building The Big Nasty}

{The BIG Nasty}

{Chef Case and The Big Nasty}

{Tasting Time!}

Unfortunately, my photos of the actual CBNTRIBUTEPARTY were terribly blurry and dark, not even salvageable by Instagram. I had a blast hanging out with fellow Chicago Bloggers, and noshing on the tasty treats provided by Tribute.

A huge thank you to: Chicago Blogger Network for the tote bags. My tote bag was stuffed with these goodies:

• Blackhawks beanie from New Era: NewEraCap.com


• Bottle opener and a pair of sunglasses from Loopt: loopt.com


• A snack bar from Kind Bars: kindsnacks.com {one of my personal favorites!}


• Chips from Pop Chips: popchips.com


• A gift certificate to Freshii: freshii.com


• A hand scrub/hand cream kit from Pink Papaya: pinkpapayaparties.com

Last but certainly not least, any readers interested in checking out Tribute and their delicious contemporary American fare, show them this photo below on your visit, and receive 10% off of your bill!

xoxo,
PJ