DEBT CONSOLIDATION

The first month of Project Money is nearly over and we are just home from another meeting with our coach, Aidan. This was the most mind-blowing session with her yet! There were so many things we discussed including the finalization of our debt consolidation loan.

First off, the debt consolidation loan takes all the outstanding debt we have and puts it into a single loan that we make a monthly payment to. The awesome news is that if we continue to pay the amount of money that we were divvying up between all the bills we owed, this new loan will be paid off in 3 ½ years and with A LOT less interest! Any extra money that we pay to this will just shorten the pay-off timeline. This is exciting, folks!

We worked hard in creating savings accounts for a Christmas fund and our annual commitment to our church; we decided on a monthly amount to go into each. We also came to the conclusion that we should increase the amount we keep in the savings account for the dogs from $500 to $1000 (an emergency trip to the vet could easily wipe that $500 out). Aidan then suggested that we move some of our money from savings into a Money Market account and use that for emergencies (like an upcoming roof repair – remember life happens), and set a goal that the money Sue makes off commissions will go straight into this Money Market account.

Overall, we are both so excited to see all our hard work over the last couple months come to fruition! Every time we walk out of our meetings with Aidan, we are smiling from ear-to-ear because this is so cool! Now that we are using Summit's Climbr and the Cash Flow Calendar, it is so much easier to see where we are spending and saving! We sure hope that any of our followers look into these online tools that Summit Credit Union offers…they sure can simplify your life!

To think, this is only our second month of Summit Credit Union’s Project Money! WOW! It’s too bad that we didn’t know about all of this years ago. We are really excited about our financial future and are truly living Summit’s motto of “It’s your money, own it!”