Next Steps...Snowball or UTL?

Anonymous · ‎05-30-2019

Hi All,

New to this form. Been reading and learning so much and have decided to reachout to my specific scenario to seek guidance of best path to get out of this hole. After having been fired in Jan 2019 for the first time in 25 years of working, the last few months wife and I have really focused on our debt. I found a job to just get income flowing in again and while not nearly what I was paying before, realized that changes needed to be made. We have eliminated all use of credit card, have a $1k emergency fund, and moved back in with in-laws until we can figure out next steps.

I found the Vertex spreadsheet few months ago and with what I've been learning here, I added the UTL data on to it.

Now I guess the question is what's next?

I've tired to include all the relevant data from reading other similar questions and replies. Much appreciated!

Actually trying to share a screenshot of the Vertex worksheet but don't have a picture icon to add it. I'm using Chrome on a desktop PC. Any thoughts?

CreditInspired · ‎06-01-2019

Hi OP and welcome to MyFICO

Until just now Googling that spreadsheet, I had not heard of it. For my budget, I just created a simple budget in Excel.

So the basics of any budget is to know what funds are coming in and what expenses are going out.

So, an example, I am semi-retired and temp anywhere from 1-3 days/wk. My budget consists of 52 weeks (yes all of 2919) in the top row. So whatever date I receive my paycheck and SS goes on the income row.

Then down the left-hand side, all my expenses are listed (CCs, loans, groceries, mortgage, transpo, utilities, cell phone, streaming services, and anything miscellaneous).

So the last row subtracts the expenses from income.

Hope this helps

|| AmX Cash Magnet $40.5K || NFCU CashRewards $30K || Discover IT $24.7K || Macys $24.2K || NFCU CLOC $15K || NFCU Platinum $15K || CitiCostco $12.7K || Chase FU $12.7K || Apple Card $7K || BOA CashRewards $6K

Revelate · ‎06-01-2019

Throwing out the obligatory third option:

Forget snowball, forget utilization, pay the highest APR first and get out of debt the fastest (mathematically proven!).

Remedios · ‎06-01-2019

@Revelate wrote:
Throwing out the obligatory third option:

Forget snowball, forget utilization, pay the highest APR first and get out of debt the fastest (mathematically proven!).

I dont think this can be said enough times.