I made my payment today from my paycheck towards my balance transfer. The balance is down to $2153 and needs to be paid off by 9/1. That means I need to pay off on average, $307/month. Which is down a little bit from last month's average of $321/month.

I have mostly done my taxes, and it looks like I will have about $350 from that to drop on the BT. On top of whatever I can come up with that month, it'll make a huge difference I think in my monthly required payment. But not counting on it til I get it.

I got a new credit card. Probably not the wisest thing I could have done but I think this past month has been eye opening in the 'wow I still can't handle having a credit card' way. Case in point, last month I racked up $1300 and I can only justify maybe $700 of it (plane tickets). The rest...it just 'happened'. So that card is going away for a time...but it's around for emergencies since my EF is struggling a bit.

One of my Citi cards had 0% BT offer until 9/1/09. So I got $2500 because I know I can pay that amount off by the due date...

It will cover the following:
$1100 to my friend's AmEx card for my half of a vacation we are taking in March that she paid for all of (with the knowledge that I would pay her back for my half).
$1300 to the new credit card.
And the last $100 wound up being extra but at the time I didn't know what all had cleared on the new credit card and I wanted to make sure I was covered. When all the dust settles, that will go back onto the card with the BT on it.

The plan...put all extra cash onto the BT card. Do not charge any more on the new credit card. (It's only still in my wallet because I'm going to attempt to fly out to my dad's tomorrow and with traveling I want to have that cushion in case I need it but I don't plan on using it.)

I get paid once a month on the 15th. After each payment that I make on the 15th I'll see if I'm still on track to pay it off by 9/1/09.

Right now, I'll need to come up with $322/mo in order to pay it off on time. On average, I have $240 on the 15th plus $135 on the 1st each month to pay extra on things. Plus I plan on taking half of my tax return and putting it on this card, while saving the other half for food/incidentals on my March vacation. I plan on posting an update after each payment from the check on the 15th. The goal of course is really to pay it off way before 9/1 so I can get back to the rest of the debt reduction.

We'll see.