Our Van Loan

We purchased a new 2023 Honda Odyssey late August 2022. We paid for it with cash and a loan at 3.49% for 48 months. The principal balance started at $40,399. We have consistently made payments of much more than the minimum for just over two years and have a balance today of $5,725.96.

We currently plan to pay off this loan before the end of the year, possibly before the end of November. I have never been one to want to hold debt any longer than necessary...paying the bank interest sucks! 

The less debt we hold, the fewer expenses we have relative to our income, the more space we create for flexibility. The ability to adapt to increasing prices and inflation. The flexibility to put our money into places that earn us money. The flexibility to spend on things with meaning to us, like family vacations.

We are also about 14 months away from my husband retiring from the military. He may get another job because he likes to work, but we are also minimizing our expenses to live on the pension he will receive and our retirement savings. The less debt we are obligated to the better! 

I highly encourage anyone reading to get your house in order. Cut unnecessary expenses, establish an emergency fund, pay off debt as fast as possible. Regardless of income, we have personal responsibility to ourselves, our family and community to be a good steward of the resources given to us. 

The Payback: September Progress

We are paying ourselves back for the car we helped our daughter purchase. The goal is to return $11,000 back to our savings account by the end of 2024 or sooner! These payback posts are to track that progress.

September Progress

9/1 Income $425

9/15 Income $515

Total $940

YTD $10,060.00

Left to Goal $940

Next month we can cross this goal off as complete! 

Pot of Possibilities - August 2021 - Final

This will be my last Pot of Possibilities post, at least for awhile! We are buying a home, which is what much of these funds were meant to support. The original goal was $200,000 by end of 2023. Not sure we would have made it, but we really might have been close. Let's see where we ended up!

Paycheck 8/1 $1,022.77

Paycheck 8/15 $1000.77

USAA Rewards $3.20

Amex Rewards $88.73

FNBO Interest $12.87

NFCU Interest $42.76

August Total $2,167.90

YTD Total $20,427.46

POP Total $112,487.84

I really wanted to reach the original goal, but it's time to put down roots. It's time to spend and invest in our home. These years of savings and tucking funds away have allowed us to get to this point. And it's quite gratifying honestly. After the move I will be back with new goals, new plans. Keep saving! It's all worth it. 

Pot of Possibilities - May 2021

Five months of the year already complete?! Time is moving fast in our world. Time once again to report the contribution to our Pot of Possibilities. I failed to redeem some Amex Rewards some time back and only realized it at the end of April, which is why the amount is so large in comparison to other months. I'm not sure exactly how that happened, but we will take it. 

5/1 Paycheck $979.28

5/15 Paycheck $941.12
AmEx Rewards $202.24

USAA Rewards $9.95

US Bank Reward $3.50

Chase Rewards $20.07

USAA Interest $0.14

NFCU Interest $72.29

FNBO Interest $12.86

May Total $2,241.45

YTD Total $13,577.91

POP Total $105,638.28

May was a spendy month, but we did manage to put the full amount we originally allocated each pay period into the pot. We have another line item of $250 per pay period towards unallocated expenses. We spent it all this month and dipped into what we saved previously. Mentally I don't like to dip into savings, but I set this up for that very reason! It's just something I have to remind myself when it happens. 

We are still making progress on our Pot of Possibilities! After five months we have done very well, and may possibly be on track to save at least $30K in 2021. Good luck with your June savings goals!

The End of Saving Advice, Starting Over

I've been blogging at a site called Saving Advice for over 11 years. The site was suddenly taken down, or as the owner said in an email, all blogs and forums were deleted! Yikes. Obviously, this is very disappointing to have information I have written wiped off the internet completely.

Of course, all of our banking information and accounts have no connection to the writing, but I did use that blog to document our goals. At first I thought I had no information to recreate our current goal balances, but as my luck would have it, the history on my phone calculator has my September 1 calculations! So excited!!

On the first of every month, I record the interest we earned from our savings accounts, as well as our progress on our Big Goal, to save $200,000 towards our next home. And in the last four months or so, I have also been tracking our progress on paying ourselves back for a $3000 down payment on our daughter's car. I had been putting these into separate posts on Saving Advice. For this month, I will post all of the progress in one post since I am restarting this blog.

September 2019 Interest Earned
FNBO $63.39
NFCU $120.39
USAA $0.02
Total Interest $183.80

The original down payment on our daughter's car was $3000. As of the end of August, we the balance we had left to pay ourselves back was $1,880.55.

This month I found several extra funds to apply to this payback:
US Bank $14.60
Chase Freedom $2.54
Amex Rewards $55.66
Amazon Gift cards $48
Pinecone Survey $3
eBay Sales $18.40
Tuna Class Action $2.38
Hair Care Class Action $11.79
Total Towards Payback $156.37
New Car Down Payment Balance $1,724.18

It was a slow month accumulating extra funds to apply to this goal. The truth is some months are easier than others in finding extra money. It was also expensive this month buying airline tickets and few extra purchases at home. I'm very thankful we do have extra funds to put towards our goals each month!

The original Big Goal balance at the end of August was $69,945.35. Our year to date balance was $6,959.90. We are currently applying $175 twice per month towards this goal in addition to the interest earned on our savings.

September Big Goal additions
Paycheck 9/1 $175.00
Paycheck 9/15 $175.00
Total Interest $183.80
Total $533.80
New YTD Big Goal Total $7,493.70
New Big Goal Total $70,479.15

So excited to have exceeded the $70K mark! We are now 35.2% complete on our $200,000 goal.

Thanks for reading! And if you are here from Saving Advice, comment down below and let me know where you are blogging now, so I can follow you!