I tend to be an all-or-nothing type of person, which is why when I fall off a wagon I tend to fall hard and for longer than a few days. When I fall, it’s like “Well, I goofed that up, might as well go whole hog!” I realize that is not a healthy way to deal with things and am slowly getting better, otherwise I wouldn’t be back at this blog.

So, instead of looking at that fall as a failure, I’m looking at it as a bump and I’m back on. A failure would be for me to simply give up completely, and I worked too hard for much of last year to do that. I looked back through my year to see exactly what I did and could do better.

Good – Went from 30 accounts to 19

Could be better – Would have been down to 14 if I hadn’t signed up for more subscription clubs, a huge weakness of mine

Good – Did great from January through July (7 months)

Could be better – Spent crazily and didn’t pay attention to my money habits from August through mid-November (3.5 months)

Good – Paid off 19 account (mostly small but they are paid)

Total paid on these accounts: $896.00 on small non-credit accounts + $2650 on car and two credit cards = $3546. total toward paid-off debts

Total paid on all debts, including those above: $4776.25 = 11.6% of salary. I’m not sure if that’s a good percentage or not, but it’s a heckuva lot more than I’d paid on getting rid of debts in a long time.

I’ve also been doing some forward planning. I realize that wages and circumstances change, but it really helps me to see what I’m working toward in order to keep on track as much as I can. If I pay $500 a month on my student loan, I’ll have it paid off by the end of 2011 and still pay off five, possibly six, of my credit accounts by the end of 2008, paying the remaining account off in early 2009. The money going toward paying off these debts can then go toward building up my 3-6 months emergency savings while paying off the student loan.

So theoretically, in 2012 when I’m 40, I’ll be debt-free and can start putting at least 15% if not 20% of my income toward retirement savings. I don’t own a home and I really don’t plan on owning one, so that’s not an issue. I also don’t have kids so there’s no college or other kid issue. I need to keep this in mind when I get down and feel like it’s taking for-ev-er to pay off my debt.