Debt to Dreams

More than once in my life I have been told that if nothing else, at least I am consistent. Our family’s consistency showed again last month with yet another steady gain of $4000 for the month.

More importantly I flnally paid off the last of my consumption credit card debt marking the first time since medical school that I am free from credit card debt.

Here are the details:

For the first time readers all of my credit card debt is now in the form of 0% balance transfers which I have placed in FDIC insured online savings accounts. This results in an extra couple of thousand dollars a year after taxes and fees.

Taking advantage of these 0% balance transfers does make our finances a little more interesting but so far it has been worth the effort. The main negative side effect is that it has resulted in a significant decrease in my credit score.

Our student loan debt is real and not a typo. Our total balance is currently around $140,000 and we are currently paying off some of our smaller loans with the majority of my student loans in forbearance.

We continue to devote the majority of our positive cash flow into short term savings accounts Although the yields on these accounts are falling, most of our family needs are short term and I do not have enough confidence in the stock market right now to risk a significant downturn. Therefore a very large percentage of our assets remain in cash.

I feel slightly guilty about our low contribution rate to our retirement accounts. I realize however that the fact that we are actually contributing to these accounts right now is a step in the right direction. Neither my wife nor I are eligible for a matching contribution. Our incentive to save is low while the expenses for our young family remain high. This metric will likely become worse before it becomes better over then next two years.

The next month and a half will be very busy for us. We are quickly approaching the holiday season, our first wedding anniversary and our first year of blogging.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 21st, 2007 at 5:43 PM and is filed under Goals and Monthly Updates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.