90th Carnival of Debt Reduction – Recap
NCN from No Credit Needed Network has posted the 90th Carnival of Debt Reduction. I admit that I haven’t really followed this carnival since I’m always so busy getting through the Festival of Frugality and Carnival of Personal Finance, but NCN was kind enough to link to my Carnival from his this week, so I went over Tuesday to check it out.
I’m glad I did, as there are quite a few excellent articles about credit and debt reduction. We’re hustling along on our own path of freedom from debt, starting with paying off our Chevy Malibu, so I’m definitely interested in what others are doing, or have done, to throw those debt monkeys off their backs.
Here are a few of my favorites:
- Tricia at Blogging Away Debt posted about why she was glad she had an emergency fund. I’ve never had savings in my life until I got married. Even then I was so focused on either paying down the new car loan I seemed to get each year, or other debt, that I didn’t stash any money away for emergencies. We have 5 figures saved up now, and it feels good, considering the expenses we have coming up (masters degree, maybe an adoption, home improvements). If we can’t pay out of our regular account, then we have that savings account!
- Free Money Finance warns against co-signing for a loan. I’ve considered helping my sister or grandmother before, but then I realize the position I would put myself and my wife in if they default. Then I realized they didn’t need the stuff anyway.
- NCN (yep, the host) submitted 5 options for paying down debt. I pay off whichever one makes the most sense at the time. This time, we paid off the Malibu first because it had a high monthly commitment ($416 per month) and my second highest interest rate by 0.5% (the highest is my student loan).
- And finally, Baz complains about why people have so many credit cards, but then he realizes why. It’s the exact same reason I still have about 7 credit cards. However, I have 2 in my sights to close when we pay off our credit card debt (maybe the next one up on the list to pay off).
Thanks for hosting NCN!