This is a republishing of a post that’s part of a series on “How I Got Outta Debt” written back in 2009 when this blog was on Blogger. I know I keep saying it but this is just as relevant today as it was yesterday. If you are in the position to do so I hope that it inspires you to take control of your finances and your life.

Laundry is hung to dry above an Italian street. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’m back with the calculations on all my debt listed in part 5 of this series. I’m going to show my debts, the amount of time it would have taken me to pay off the debt based on the payment amount and the total amount I would have paid doing it the way most folks do/the way the creditors want you to.

What was/is their plan? To pay the minimum payment for the maximum amount of time. This results in you paying the maximum amount of money on the money you borrowed. Translation…it’s more money that you have to work for to make these payments…forever. (it will feel like that) Here is the lowdown and remember APR is the interest rate:

• Visa: $2371.53, $50 per mo, 12%, 65 months, $3250.00

• H.F: $1000.00, $19 per mo, 9.9%, 70 months, $1330.00

• Car: $3571.69, $245 per mo, 7.9%, 16 months, $3920.00

• Capital One: $984.43, $19 per mo, 9.9%, 68 months, $1292.00

• BoA: $4588.00, $51 per mo, 9.52%, 159 months, $8109.00

• Perkins: $2027.15, $40 per mo, 5.00%, 58 months, $2320.00

• Direct SL: $5786.44, $52.52 per mo, 4.22%, 140 months, $7352.80

• Mortgage: $48175.00, $413.06 per mo, 6.25%, 181 months, $74,763.86

The total amount paid when everything is paid off according to the normal way of doing things…$102,339.86!!!

That $102,339.86 figure does not even include what I already paid when I had my head up my butt! Remember I mentioned that I quit playing around and got serious with this July of 2001? Well of course based on the payoff time, I would have paid almost all of these off by now (November 2009).  However, I’d still be paying on the Direct SL (Student Loan), Bank of America and the mortgage. That’s $518 on top of utilities, food, gas and whatever else for everyday living. That might not seem like much but when your income has been slashed by 50+ %,  which it had been at the time I first wrote this post, that’s a heck of a lot of extra money to have to come up with.

Also when I was writing this post, I had heard on YouTube,  a news clip from MSNBC that credit card companies are trying to jack up rates ahead of legislation going into effect to stop these practices. Well, credit card companies have always had this power and all they’ve had to do was give you a 15 day notice which is one of the reasons why I chose to get rid of them first.

In the next posts, you’ll see the RDRP- Rapid Debt Repayment plan, better known as the debt snowball plan in action.  I used that same $889.58 to not only pay off all debt except for the mortgage but to pay off all debt including the mortgage. Yes folks, it is possible to pay off all of your debt and not take the rest of your life doing so.  And you’ll see how you save not only money but your sanity as well.  But you’re gonna have to check back in to this series to see how I did it.

Related articles

• Gettin’ Outta Debt pt 5-My Debt Numbers (ceraisis.net)
• Gettin’ Outta Debt pt 4-The Contingency aka Emergency Fund (ceraisis.net)
• Gettin’ Outta Debt pt3- The Debt Snowball (ceraisis.net)
• How I Got Outta Debt: Resources I Used To Become Debt Free pt 2 (ceraisis.net)
• How I Got Outta Debt-Resources I Used On The Road to Being Debt Free pt.1 (ceraisis.net)