There are lot’s of exciting things going on here! I’ll be posting some news very soon….but on to my monthly updates, which keep me honest with myself and motivated to keep forging on.

Bike Challenge

Riding two days a week to school and back equates to 24 miles a week. When I add on my additional 4 miles to Starbucks on the weekends, I can confidently say I’m exceeding this goal. Below is my status:

May's Bike Challenge Update

This challenge has been pretty easy for me to meet, it just requires me getting up 30 minutes earlier than normal. You can see I’m almost  at 144 miles. Easy, breezy!

Crummy Loan Pay Off

My loan repayment challenge is much more of a challenge! Since the crummy loan is at such a high interest rate, almost 30%, paying it off is like taking two steps forward and one step back after they apply their finance fees. Yuck! I’ve been diligent in paying at least $400 a month, and this month I was able to apply an additional $50 making the total payment towards this loan $450. View my status below:

Crummy Loan Repayment for May

Even though I made a $450 payment, my balance only went down $251 due to to an almost $200 in monthly interest fee charge. This high of a rate of interest should be illegal.

I recently read about a low income person who was paying this very same financial company through a wage garnishment. He ended up going to court because the total he was paying on the loan wasn’t making much of a dent in his outstanding balance. The lawyer representing him found out that he had paid over $10,000 in the course of 2 years for an original $7,000 loan. Yet the company claimed he still owed close to $8,000! What a rip off. The company eventually dropped the balance due from his credit report. How nice of them. *note the sarcasm.

What’s Next

• To make paying off this crummy line of credit a little more tolerable, I might hit up my bank this summer and to reduce the rate of this loan. I tried with Lending Tree but to no avail.
• Plan my retirement savings! This is my end of summer goal.
• Continue writing, guest posting, and plan my summer project (I have two that are secrets for now!)

What’s on your list for projects, planning, or just plain summer fun?