How much debt have you paid off in a year?

**Maine Girl** · 11-11-2009, 08:25 AM

I am starting to set up my financial new years resolutions for 2010 and am looking to pay off my credit cards.

So i was wondering how much debt have you paid off in a year? Thank you

**Greebo** · 11-11-2009, 08:46 AM

See my signature - bit more than a year though.

**Russ** · 11-11-2009, 08:51 AM

We should hit around $22k.

Goal for next year - $25k or about a 10% increase.

I'm hoping for more though.

**SixxOfDiamonds** · 11-11-2009, 09:29 AM

Last year we paid off about $25,000-$30,000 in debt. Although, we did purchase a house.

**Inkstain82** · 11-11-2009, 09:51 AM

About $9,000, or 21% of our income. It would have been a lot more if there hadn't been a new baby in the mix.

**Maine Girl** · 11-11-2009, 10:23 AM

You guys are awesome. By 2011 I would like to have paid off $7000 worth of debt this would pay off two credit cards. Sooner if possible of course. And once I set a plan into place i will update my siggy with accurate numbers.

**Denvergirlie** · 11-11-2009, 10:32 AM

June 2007 - June 2008, I paid off $22,221 in debt in one calendar year, but paid off $29K in about 16 months in total, and that made me debt free.

**Lindsey** · 11-11-2009, 01:45 PM

In 18 months we paid off $30K on a $20K a year salary. We sold DH's truck and a lot of other "stuff/junk" on craigslist and got $5,500 back in taxes to help us for just a start to help us.

**Nishu** · 11-11-2009, 03:22 PM

About 20k, which is not nearly as much as I had hoped. Actually it's quite embarrassing. Ask me again in a year though and my answer will be a lot better. In the past few months we've really increased our debt payments and cut our expenses down to the bone.

I have fallen off the wagon a bit though since my mom's visit. This question has been a swift kick in the butt.

All the excess in the next pay check is going to buy a laptop for my husband to take underway with him, and then it's back to the snowball. Can't wait!

**Maine Girl** · 11-11-2009, 05:17 PM

Originally Posted by Nishu

About 20k, which is not nearly as much as I had hoped. Actually it's quite embarrassing. Ask me again in a year though and my answer will be a lot better. In the past few months we've really increased our debt payments and cut our expenses down to the bone.

I have fallen off the wagon a bit though since my mom's visit. This question has been a swift kick in the butt.

All the excess in the next pay check is going to buy a laptop for my husband to take underway with him, and then it's back to the snowball. Can't wait!

oh my Nishu you should not be embarrassed that you only paid $20k. In my book that is great!!!

**frugalwarrior** · 11-11-2009, 06:12 PM

Hard to say,hard to say. 6 years ago we were at $160,000 after a ton of medical bills. Last year we started at $108,000. We are up $8000. at the end of this year. We did however.
-Buy a roof and get chimney work done-PIF
-purchase an $11,000 car and pay off $3000. since July/Aug.
-Payback DD $2750. we borrowed for medical bills.
-Paid off $400. road Assessment
-paid cash for 2 sets of wisdom teeth
-buy 4 tires for car
-pay off my $6000. eye surgery
-pay cash for 2 semesters of community college incl. books and cooking tools
-buy a laptop and a load of things to graduate our DD (no party)
etc.
So i don't know. Most of these expences were "surprises". We also took a $12,000 salary hit and increased our electric 36% since DH is working at home (constant computers running)

**a.nonymous** · 11-12-2009, 04:27 AM

We've paid about $14k since May. With December, we should hit the $15k mark comfortably.

Well, it's depending on how the Euro vs US$ exchange rate behaves.

For next year, we want to keep pace at EUR 1k per month. Once my wife does get a job, we should be able to hike it up to 2k or more.

**Greebo** · 11-12-2009, 08:54 AM

Anyone here who hasn't posted these numbers in the 2009 Debt Reduction Challenge Total thread, PLEASE DO!

**jamie79** · 11-12-2009, 03:33 PM

We put our debt reduction plans on hold to do somethings to the house to get it ready to sell in about 2 yrs. So now that we are almost done I need to get back on the bandwagon

**Nishu** · 11-13-2009, 10:37 AM

Originally Posted by Maine Girl

oh my Nishu you should not be embarrassed that you only paid $20k. In my book that is great!!!

Thanks, I guess I need to confess though why exactly it's embarrassing to me. I feel like I need to get it off my chest.

That 20K makes up about 25% of our before taxes pay. It just doesn't seem like progress to me because in all honesty if we had just paid our minimums and regular monthly payments, I'm not exactly sure we would have done much worse. The last few months (with the exception of this month) we had done really well, and about 700-1000 of each pay check was going toward my most hated debt.

I remember putting together a list of goals for 2009 and I know most of them I've come nowhere near meeting. I can't even find my list. I sucked so bad, in fact, that I intentionally avoided paying any credit accounts that were still usable because I didnt want to pay it down and then encounter an "emergency" that required me to use the card. My emergency fund is fully funded right now, but that has been totally hit or miss because I always find a totally awesome reason to use it.

Toward the end of last year our expenses were still way up, so it's a wonder we made any progress back then at all. We spent a lot of time driving around to lessons and kids activities and we lived pretty far from base. I kind of had this idea that I didn't want my kids to have to pay for the money mistakes we made in the past, so they still had a lot of cool things to do that cost a ton of money.

We're getting 3 raises next year and a bonus, so I'm hoping that we'll be able to take care of all our debt with that. Problem is, our first bonus is going to come about August next year, and I really don't want to use all of it to pay down our debt. That would just really stink to watch it disappear.

So I'm hoping to get most of our debt paid down before then.

I'm thinking I may have to post one of those "hold me accountable" lists of debt and payments, but honestly I'm still pretty embarrassed by the amount of CC debt we have.