SUCCESS! Goal #2 Accomplished!

We achieved Financial Stability 41 days ahead of our target date of March 31! I received my first paycheck since being back at work this morning and I was so excited, I woke up at 5:30 am. To my delight and surprise, it was $70 more than I had budgeted for, which moves us out from Stage 1: Financial Instability to Stage 2: Financial Stability!

The 5 Stages of Personal Financial Independence

All this really means is that our income is now high enough to cover all of our expenses without having to dip further into our Home Equity Line of Credit. But what it also means is that we’ll soon be able to start working on Goal #1: Pay off our HELOC!

I won’t lie – paying it off excites me, but with a balance of $14,644.60 and a target date of December 31, 2016, it also scares me a little. Assuming we start paying off our balance the first paycheck of March (which will be accurate by my current calculations), we’ll only have 9 months to pay it off, working out to be $1,627.18/month (not including the interest that will accumulate in the meantime.)

This will be a challenging goal, but it will keep us focused and also modify our behaviour in the meantime (e.g. continuing the Crash Cash Diet, taking overtime whenever offered, etc.) I mean, would I have volunteered to work 8 am to 7 pm today and Monday if I wasn’t so focused on our goals? Probably not. On that note, I should probably go get ready for work now…

Eyes on the prize!