$100k not as sweet a deal as it used to be?

Makes me wonder what I'm striving for:

http://www.bankrate.com/nltrack/news/pf/20081215-inflation-shrinks-income-a1.asp

Personally, I think the article's author needs to take a look at people closer to the median salary instead of looking so far out into the standard deviations. Lots of people out there would still kill to make $100k, even if it doesn't go as far as it used to.

edited because median != medium. Stoopid typos

Debt #6 - My wife's car

2003 Dodge Neon (link goes to picture source)
Original loan length: 60 months
Remaining loan length: 5 months (complete in May)
Monthly payment: $215.22
Estimated amount remaining: $1076.10
Interest rate: Unknown

Description:
This is my a loan for my wife's car. She picked it up in 2003 after an accident involving myself, a car full of football players, and far too many late nights studying for finals. It's a 2003 Dodge Neon, bought new with some hail damage, and currently has around 83k miles on it. We're hoping we can keep this car for at least another 5 years or so. We've been diligent on the basic maintenance front, and so far haven't had very many issues with it (knock on wood).

Plan to payoff:
This is going to be the first debt we pay off. We're pretty much just going to make the remaining payments, perhaps throwing a little extra at it. At this point, we won't save much in interest by paying it off early as the interest damage is done by this point. I don't have the rate here, but it was probably around 6%. Upon completion, we'll be using this payment to accelerate debt #5.

Taking a look at the debt

$392,594.14

is a big number, but not as frightening as it first looks. I'll be honest - the initial reason I had for figuring out this number was just for pure shock value. I wanted to both shock myself into action, and shock anyone who happened to stumble across the title into reading. Shock value is great for spurring action, but can be a bit misleading on the particulars. No, I don't owe $390k on a single loan. Instead, I owe this amount on several loans put together. Those loans are as follows:

1. A house - $176,351.37
2. Student loans for myself - $173,729.85
3. Student loans for my wife - $20,000 (approx.)
4. My car loan - $17,000 (approx.)
5. Past taxes, being paid in an installment agreement - $3950 (approx.)
6. My wife's car loan - $1021 (approx.)

All of these loans are current, and have been in repayment for at least 6 months. Obviously, and I'm sure you can see this issue as well, I have some work to do in figuring out exactly what I owe in some cases, but I do guarantee that where the numbers aren't exact, they are very close to (if not larger than) what the actual remaining balance is. For example, my wife's car has 5 payments remainng, with each payment being approximately $215 (the final payment will be less).

What I'll do over the next several posts is take a look at each debt in turn. As I hit each debt, I will do everything in my power to obtain full payoff quotes, and will state the term and rate on each loan. I'll also include what the monthly payment is on each amount, just for reference. By the time this is finished, I (and you) should have a very clear picture of the mountain I'm getting ready to climb. Until next time!

$392,594.14

To within a 3% margin of error. This is the amount that I owe. I intend to have this debt paid off as quickly as possible.

Perhaps that is not the best way to start things off.

Hi, welcome to Clearing the Ledger. I'll be your guide on what, based on my preliminary calculations, will be a nearly two-decade journey to pull myself out of ridiculous debt for good. I am 28 years old, married, and live in the Chicago suburbs trying to build a life for myself and my future family. I've got one major problem, though, and it starts with a dollar sign at the top of this post.

My intent here is twofold. First, I want to keep myself accountable for paying the above completely off. This is not going to be a half-measure. I actually despise debt, but I am in this situation simply because there are some things that become very challenging to do without assuming any debt. Secondly, I want to share my discoveries with the world. I don't have any secrets, and none of the techniques I use will be unique to this blog, but sometimes just having the information present in a central location can be beneficial. If only one person stumbles across this blog and learns something, I believe that I can call that a job well done.

Most importantly, though, this blog will not shy away from the numbers too much. One of the biggest problems any person in debt has is knowing whether or not their situation is truly unique. I don't think my case is particularly special (with the exception of some overlarge student loans), so just the fact that I'm posting these things may help some other fairly average person in a similar situation get a feel for where they're at.

So, welcome! Make yourself at home, kick back, take a load off. We're in for a hell of a ride.