Warning: common side effects of reading the following figures are shortness of breath, palpitations, anxiety, high blood pressure, or all of the above. Either because they resemble your own numbers or because right now you’re thinking I’m more of an idiot than you are. In the latter case, I’m glad I can make you feel a little better. These numbers have been rounded for the sake of simplicity, but are not at all exaggerated. In addition, these numbers do not include the student loans I’ve racked up in excess of $30K. I plan on tackling those only after I’m done with my high-interest credit cards and loans.

• Total monthly disposable income (less taxes and minimum monthly payments): $7,000
• Total unsecured debt: $52,000
• Credit Cards
  • Target Redcard: $5,075.26
  • Discover: $1,896.52
  • Zales: $5,073.06
  • Lenkersdorfer: $2,000.00
  • CompUSA: $4,211.73
  • Mastercard: $734.31
  • iTunes Visa: $629.58
  • Chase: $9,453.97
  • NRL Platinum Visa: $7,445.18
• Loans
  • NRL Credit Union: $3224.41
  • Navy Federal: $11,834.92

Total: $49,578.94

(I’ve set up a section where we can keep track of progress on these numbers here.)

Pretty insane, huh? That’s a lot of credit cards for one household. The crazy thing is that we are supposed to have $7,000 in cash left over every month after paying our mortgage, utilities, and minimums on credit cards! Somehow I’ve only managed to stash $1,000 away into a savings account. It sounds silly to admit that we’ve had to live paycheck to paycheck with that much disposable income, but it’s the truth.

Christmas didn’t help, but it’s not completely to blame. Tune in tomorrow for the scoop on managing Christmas.
But tell me: are my numbers the worst of the worst, or do my numbers look like a walk in the park compared to yours?

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