New Year's Day, 9 a.m., everyone else in the house still asleep. Juno and I are the only ones up, and she's mostly interested in whether I'm going to drop part of my toast. I have coffee, the club sheet open on my laptop and one rule for this post: write down every number, including the ones I don't love.
I started this blog in March with a credit card balance, a lot of student loans and a small emergency fund. Here's where the year ended.
The big numbers
- Credit card: $2,350 in March, $0 in May. About $96 in interest along the way, at 27.24%.
- Student loans: $24,600 in March, $14,620 on December 31. That's $9,980 paid off.
- Emergency fund: $1,800 in March, $6,000 in December. Goal reached.
- Side income from pet sitting and dog walking: $3,860 for the year.
- Credit score: 668 in March, 724 the last time I checked in the fall.
- 401(k): about $11,200 when I finally looked in July, after three years of 5% from me and a 4% match.
The loan number is the one I keep looking at. In December the balance crossed below $15,700, which is half of the $31,400 I originally borrowed. A borrower who spent the payment pause buying takeout instead of paying ahead does not usually get to write that sentence, so I'm writing it twice in my head.
Most of the year ran on paychecks of $1,342 every two weeks, about $2,908 a month on average. From March to May, the biggest piece went to the credit card. From June on, the card's money went to the loans, and my loan payment jumped to $1,100 a month. In September I added a $1,100 lump sum from my summer pet-sitting money. In October my highest-rate loan, the 5.05% one, was gone.
The emergency fund grew in the background: $100 a paycheck at first, more once the card was paid off, plus whatever was left in checking at the end of each month. Since April it's been in an online high-yield savings account at 3.8%, which earned me a little over $100 this year for doing nothing at all.
The $300 a month I pay my parents, my $35 phone line and the $95 for my share of the car insurance stayed steady all year. Boring numbers are good numbers.
The months that didn't go to plan
March and April were tight in a way I didn't enjoy. Almost $500 every paycheck went to the card, and my spending money was small. I said no to a lot. It was the right call, but it wasn't fun.
August cost more than I planned. A night in Lake Geneva with Priya was $186 for my share, and I don't regret a dollar of it, but it wasn't in the budget until I moved things around.
October brought a $465 brake job on my 2012 Corolla. The car line covered most of it, and $127 came out of my spending money. Annoying, but not a disaster.
December had three things at once: my paycheck dropped to $1,240 because I'm now on my own health insurance through work, I went $40 over my $350 Christmas budget, and I bought a $74 winter kit for the car. The fund still hit $6,000, but December was the month I most wanted to stop looking at the club sheet.
And honestly, the slow start. I wish I had started all of this in 2023 instead of using the payment pause as a vacation from thinking about my loans. I can't change that. I can only not repeat it.
I set aside 25% of my pet-sitting income starting in September and caught up on the earlier months. That's $965, and I'm sending it as an estimated payment this month. I'll file my 2025 return early, and any refund goes to the loans.
The plan for 2026
This year has a different goal: moving out. I've been living in my parents' house in Wilmette since July 2024, and I want my own place by summer. Starting this month, I'm putting $900 a month into a move fund and cutting my loan payment to $800. The loans will slow down for a few months, and I made peace with that. The emergency fund stays at $6,000 while the move fund grows.
A year ago I didn't have a number for anything. Now I have a spreadsheet full of them, most of them moving the right way. That's the small win of 2025: not any single payment, but knowing where every dollar goes.
