Alright so
@Cherokeekid88 asked me in a PM at what point into the debt pay off plan did I start to feel things turn for the better. I figured I'd answer that here for anyone else to read as well to encourage them. It is a long, complicated answer, and results will vary based on anyone's particular debt situation, and income as well as life events.
When we started, my wife had all this stupid debt. Kohls card, Rooms to go, Lowes card, HH Greg. She had literally financed her furniture, TV, and several things she HAD to have as a single mother recently divorced. It wasn't huge balances, $1800 here, $900 there, $1200. But the payments were $25, $55, $40, and we weren't getting ahead of the interest. So we listed every debt balance from highest to smallest and threw all our extra moeny at the smallest one. It was the Kohls card I believe, only $400 balance. We paid it off in 2 months from our start and snowballed that over to the next one.
Now when we started this, we did not have much extra money at all. We very much lived paycheck to paycheck. We cut all the extra stuff out, I stopped wheeling, my wife stopped getting her hair and nails done, I stopped dipping, started packing my lunch, we stopped eating out except for once a week. That's where our extra money was going so we used that to start knocking the debt out.
So we saw some small success within 4 months with about 3 small balances paid off, then our payments to the next bill in line were getting bigger. Like $400/month going to a debt with a balance of $1200. You need those small successes like that cause they keep you motivated and on track.
So, to speed the process up I made even more sacrifices. I sold my Wrangler for $4k and we instantly paid off several things. We used almost all of our tax refund and knocked out huge chunks. I sold another car I had and put that towards debt too.
Now, I want everyone to understand something important-we still did things and had fun, we just did it with a budget. We still spent a week at the beach, other small trips, even went to Disney while in the "snowball" phase. You have to live a little while you're doing this or you will get burnt out. Just be smart about it and budget for it.
The short answer is within 4 months we had lots of extra money, but we put ALL that extra money into our snowball. Around 8 months in we really started to see a difference in our lives. We had more breathing room all those small bills were gone. We were really down to one car loan, school loans, 1 credit card. It was so much easier having just a few payments going out each month rather than 12-14 different bills due at different times. 1 year in things were very different for us.
During this phase many life events happened. I went from making $20/hr to $12/hr, then within 8 months of that change my income had surpassed my previous income. I was really only able to afford the pay cut because we had paid off some debt already. We decided to have a kid, sold a house, bought a house, bought a van, went to Disney. Son was born and required extensive surgery, then the wife needed surgery just 3 months later. My income went up again, wifes income went down as she reduced her hours to be with the kids more.
It originally should have taken us just under 2 years to pay everything off when we started, but with all of that it took just over 3 years. Things come up, life changes, and you need to live a little in between. Just adjust as needed, and stick with it. Once you start the snowball, you should see improvements within 4-6 months and huge improvements after 8 months. But again there is lots of variables for this.
