Patience
>> Tuesday, April 21, 2009
I've often read and heard people say that once you get started on the Dave Ramsey debt snowball, the hardest part of the whole thing is the waiting... waiting to get your next check so you can send just a little more toward debt, or until you see your check clear your account so you can update your totals.
And for me, impatient Kelsa, it's even more true!
So much that I tend to cheat sometimes... you see that debt payoff bar on the right? Well, I tend to update it when I send in the payment b/c I've never had a problem with it being applied properly. So when I send in a $500 payment, I update my spreadsheet totals, see the new % and update my bar to the right, forget waiting for it to actually be applied to my account.
That worked up until now.
The last two payments I sent to Citibank for my student loans have cleared my checking account (i.e. the checks were cashed), but they are not showing up online as reducing my student loan balance.
Things that make you go hmm...
So I call and talk to a nice lady by the name of Regina. She confirms that there are no payments showing up in my account (it's not just a website issue).
Luckily for me, I'm uber organized so I have copies of the checks and the letters I sent with the checks and even copies of the backs of the cashed checks. I'm sending it all in and I'm sure they'll fix it, but still... gosh dang it, I want to see my balance GO DOWN!
This is improving my patience... which is something I need.
I also realized that I need to wait until the payment actually clears before I update my payoff bar and spreadsheet. That really sucks, but that way I can prove it was applied properly and I'm not cheating!
Hopefully they get it resolved soon... I don't like waiting- especially when it has to do with my money!
Another thing I realized today is that back in September, when we first started this Dave Ramsey debt snowball plan, our minimum payments were $790.08/month. For May, the total of our minimum payments is $231.90! That means we've reduced the total amount each month by $558.18!! Of course, we're still sending in that much, but it's no longer a requirement! It feels amazing to think about how much money we'll be saving each month at the end of this year.
Kelsalynn
1 comments:
I had a similar issue but with my husband's student loan. I was paying the bill each month, and the checks were clearing through my account each month, but then I was getting notices that we were deliquent. I called and they said they'd never rec'd the payments (3 months worth). But thanks to the interweb, there were elctronic copies of each check being cashed through my bank. So, the US Dept of Ed was cashing the checks, but they weren't applying the balances to the account.
After I faxed copies of these checks and sent them hard copies, and made several angry calls, suddenly the issue was fixed. Still, I don't know how that could happen.
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