The Specifics

The worksheet I used to help determine when we would be able to pay off our debts using the Snowball strategy is at: http://www.vertex42.com/Calculators/debt-reduction-calculator.html

It is a very powerful spreadsheet that runs you through different strategies for paying down your debt. You can sort them in order of amount, interest rate, or a custom order. It will also calculate how long it will take only making the minimum payments without using the snowball formula. This one gets pretty depressing showing how much you will pay in interest and how long it will take.

Using the Snowball Strategy with paying down the smallest debts first we would be out of debt completely with the mortgage paid off in May of 2019.

Using the strategy of paying highest interest first we would be done in May of 2019, however we would have paid approximatly $2,000 less in interest.

If we simply pay only the minimum payment and do not apply the debt snowball strategy we will be done paying everything off in Feb of 2034, and pay over $160,000 in additional interest!!! Now that is depressing!

If we can stick to the plan and apply additional payments to our debt reduction plan as our pay goes up and we sell items we no longer need we should hopefully have everything paid off by 2015 or so.

I have already started to sell off things we really do not need. $135 for 3 items so far. I am working on Sherry to get the list of Papmered Chef items ready to sell as well has her baby grand piano. She still needs to get it tuned and appraised. A rough appraisal over the phone has it valued at approximatly $1500. But until he comes to tune and sees what the condition of the piano is we will not know for sure.

It is a George Steck Company Piano, I believe circa 1950, so it is solid wood, not the partical wood used today. If you are interested just let us know!!