Snowball Status

September's Progress

• Debt #1 Original Balance: $2260.17
• Paid Off
  

• Debt #2 Original Balance: $6493.00
• Paid Off
  

• Debt #3 Previous Balance: $9,802.00
• paid $1000.00
• Current Balance: $8,802.00

Original non-mortgage Debt: $19,375.72

Current Grand Total: $8,802.00

***

Our snowball clearly took another hit in September. Our goal is to put $2000 toward debt every month. In September we managed half of that.

The main culprits:

• Home Warranty: $519.00

• Two Pre-Paid Cell Phones: $64.18
  

• Cell Phone Minutes: $214.10

Home Warranty
A home warranty came with the closing on this house when we bought it two years ago. Because the existing heat pump is so old, we have decided to keep the warranty; we simply won't be in this house long enough to justify paying the replacement expense out-of-pocket should the heat pump go out completely.

We had several service calls last year just for issues with the heat pump. Ultimately, they replaced the indoor air handler, which was (mostly) covered under the warranty. Out-of-pocket, this would have cost us several thousand dollars. We figure the cost of keeping the home warranty for the four years we're in this house -- approximately $2000 -- has already paid for itself.

Pre-Paid Cell Phones
We canceled our contract with Verizon! This has been several months in the planning. When we moved to Ohio from Italy two years ago, we knew we would need cell phones right away. The Hubs researched cell phone plans online and ordered the phones so they'd be waiting for us when we landed in the States.

We weren't aware that pre-paid phones existed in the States then, or we probably would have gone that route. We used pre-paid cell phones while we lived in Europe -- that's the norm there -- and actually preferred it. We simply don't use the number of minutes necessary to justify a family cell phone plan; plus, we're trying to cut corners here! I'll outline the pre-paid cell phone cost in a future post.