Dry January Debt Challenge - Week 3!

Welcome to week 3 of the Dry January Debt Challenge and week 32904832 of January itself. Why is this month SO LONG?!

Also, toddler parents - what activities are you doing this winter to keep your kid active and not cooped up in the house? This weekend we went swimming (indoors, obviously) and a couple of nature walks. Life is just so much easier when the weather isn’t horrendous. I need more fun ideas for winter time that don’t involve me freezing my buns off or spending a billion dollars on an activity my daughter will enjoy for 15 seconds.

If you’ve been in debt payoff mode, how are you doing? Let’s keep up the momentum!

If you’re new here, you can read all about how to get started by revisiting my earlier posts!

Let’s quickly recap. You need to complete the following steps to pay off debt effectively:

1. Take inventory of your debts (list includes lender, interest rate, minimum payments, total balance, due date)

2. Choose snowball or avalanche method (lowest balance vs highest interest rate)

3. Manage cash flow (temporary cuts make this process much faster)

And now for step 4! AUTOMATE, AUTOMATE, AUTOMATE!!!

What does automation mean? It means setting up your bill paying, saving, investing to happen automatically.

Why should you do this?

1. To prevent self-sabotage.

2. To never miss a payment.

3. To make money management easier.

4. To better understand how much of your remaining cash is actually available for discretionary purchases (prevents overspending).

5. To remove indecision and overwhelm (I guess this is a part of preventing self-sabotage as well).

   These points are especially important when you’re on a debt payoff journey. Paying down debt takes time and consistency which is so difficult for us mere mortals (particularly if you’re raising a family, working, have a million things going on, yada, yada, yada).

Automating your savings and investing has other benefits as well (i.e. dollar cost averaging), but we’ll discuss those in a later issue!

Trust me, money becomes less stressful if you take steps to remove the burden and mental load off of you.

If you have other questions regarding paying down debt - 0% balance transfers, changing pay down methods, saving/investing while simultaneously paying off debt, etc. - send me a message on socials or via email.

Things you should know this week:

1. I’m in the process of bringing my musical parody off-Broadway. It’s been an almost 8 year journey, proving once again success comes to those who have an infinite amount of patience (LOL, no but really). Follow our journey on Insta and LinkedIn. Search for Vape! The Grease Parody. We’ll be writing about our progress.

2. If you’re looking for ways to help victims of the California wildfires, I found this local news list of organizations quite helpful.

3. Why have the markets started 2025 down? This article explains a few of the main reasons.

4. Podcast of the week is from my friend Raya Reaves at City Girl Savings. She’s a sweetheart and an EXCELLENT budgeting coach. Definitely check her out.

5. Instagram account of the week is The Walton Adventure. They are a family with 4 young daughters (yes, FOUR). I worked with them on a project a couple of years ago and I’m always so inspired by the fun outdoor activities they do with their girls. Perhaps I’ll toughen up and get outside more this winter. Or maybe I’ll just move to a warmer climate.

Keep the Dry January vibes positive and finish the second half of this month strong!

-Catie