I mentally separated my two credit cards into “Legacy Debt” and “Newer Debt”. The former has been with me on a variety of cards, banks, and interest rates since 1997, but in the last couple of years I consolidated it onto one card that I haven’t used to purchase anything. I’ve been paying it off with nothing but the money I make from side jobs like writing for this blog, because I’m using day job leftovers to pay down the Newer Debt, which today stands at $3,158.62.
However, while I was arranging some spending money for our vacation this weekend, I found that my personal checking account had enough in it to bring the Legacy Debt card to $0. Actually it ended up at $0.68, because I was estimating the amount while waiting for a haircut:
Of course, just before I wrote this I sent another 68 cent payment, so by Saturday it should be exactly zero, give or take unknown monthly finance charges.
Now, I can plan to combine the “side job money” with the other $765 per paycheck that goes toward the Newer Debt, and I can decimate it that much faster. But before that happens, I think I should take a moment to reflect:
Photo credit: Bob Jagendorf
Published or updated May 7, 2010. If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the RSS feed or receive daily emails. Follow @flexo on Twitter and visit our Facebook page for more updates.
Rank: Quarter
Luke Landes founded Consumerism Commentary in 2003 and has been building online communities since 1990. Luke, also known as Flexo, has contributed to PC World Magazine, US News, Forbes, and other publications. 
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
One thing….if you want to keep that credit card, maybe to keep
your credit score up, you might want to make one or two charges
on it per month (money you WOULD have spent anyway), Nowadays
credit card companies have a nasty habit of cancelling unused
cards, thereby reducing available credit, thereby lowering your
credit score….just a thought
You don’t need to do it every month. Inactivity usually kicks in if you don’t use a card for a year or 6 months tops.
Congratulations, Smithee. Keep the good news coming.
I”m glad to see Smithee paid up most of his Chase credit card debt! One thought, I thought as long as you made your online payment by 5:00PM ET on a given day, it will be applied on that day!?! Who has your other big debt? We should take a poll to guess…is it FIA-Bank of america? Finally, after the billing cycle, are you smithee gonna use that card more wisely?
Congratulations, Smithee!