Pimp Your Finances

As you may know, one of my resolutions for this year is to get out of credit card debt for good.

I haven’t set any specific benchmarks, but I have been tracking my progress.  Last month, I paid down 9.96% of my debt!  That’s slightly ahead of schedule.  I’ll need to pay down around 8-9% each month to achieve my goal.

Since this past October, I’ve paid down a total of…9.96%.  I know that means I had a few zero-progress months, but during that time I also got married, went on a honeymoon, and made it through the holidays without going deeper into debt.  I’m proud of that, even if I didn’t make any progress until now.

Here’s a snapshot of my original debt, and progress so far:

In case you’re wondering why there’s so much red and yellow, it’s because I love visual reminders.  Just like a traffic light, yellow is something to be cautious about, and red is something I need to stop altogether.  It’s simple, but effective.

The top portion shows how much debt I’ve paid off.  There are 25 squares, and each time I pay down 4% of my debt, I change the color of one square from red to green.  It may sound cheesy, but its a great motivator.  I love changing the color of those squares.

The bottom section shows the dollar amount of what I’ve payed off.  I like knowing exactly how much I have to go.

Between the two sections, I get the best of both worlds.  A strong visual summary, as well as the detailed numbers.

As good as January was, I expected February to blow it out of the water.  I get my federal tax return this month, and plan on using all of it to pay down my debt.

Do you have any tricks you use to motivate yourself to pay down debt?