I found this debt calculator over at CNNMoney.com. It's pretty awesome. My favorite thing about it is that you can either put in how much you want to pay and find out how long it'll take to reach zero, or you can put in how long you want to pay it off and find out how much you need to pay to reach that goal. I also like that it shows what the debt total will be every month if you follow this plan.
I put in that I want to pay it all off in three years. The magic number it gave me to reach this goal is $588.78. That number is tattooed on my brain now. (FYI, by paying $500 a month, which is what I had originally planned, it'll take three years and eight months. That's not acceptable.)
The good thing is that the magic number is feasible. The bad thing is that though this amount is feasible, it will make things very tight, especially in the near term. It's almost a hundred bucks more than I currently have budgeted for the payoff. But it's for the best in the long run. I don't know how I'm going to get it done, just that I have to and will. And I'll also be praying for a raise.
Another good thing is that my budget doesn't factor in my freelance income. Also, if push comes to shove, I can curtail the automatic savings transfer for a few months, at least until spring, when raises usually occur at my company. (Mind you, I recognize that raises are not guaranteed.)
I can't really explain why I'm so desperate to get this debt paid. I just know it's something I have to do -- and soon.
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