Yesterday when I updated my monthly debt progress, I upped my monthly debt retirement goal from $1,000 to $1,050.

I was thinking about how that $1,050 number was pretty much pulled out of thin air. I didn't base it on anything other than my gut feeling that it was an amount I thought I could handle without stretching myself too much. I thought I should base that figure on something real. Like, my average monthly debt retirement over the past year. I've already confessed to over-analyzing things.

So, I went through my monthly debt retirement figures over the past year. I omitted the month where I got my tax refund, and I averaged the remaining months. And it turns out I came up with $1,052. Darn close to what my gut feeling was yesterday.

Is it really a good goal to match last years debt retirement? Probably not. So, I will set a new goal. My new goal is to pay off debt at a rate of 5% more than last year's average - or $1,105 per month principal payment.

What a month was March! It seemed as if money was flowing in and out at an abnormal pace. Here are my new updated debt figures. Slowly chipping away.

April 2012 Debt
Mort 1 $103,172
Mort 2 $69,370
CC1 $3,220
CC2 $2,058
CC3 $1,151
CC4 $2,502
Van Loan $5,604

Total principal paid as compared to last month: $1,123. CC 3 is scheduled to be history in October. It's nice to see it melting down. We're also sending $190 worth of principal toward the van now.

I've decided to up my monthly payoff goal. For a year, my goal has been $1,000 per month. I've hit that most (not all) months. I'll up that 5% to $1,050 per month. I think that doable without stretching too much.

Have any of you done the True Colors/Real Colors personality sorter? It's a new twist one the Keirsey-Bates temperment sorter.

I'm a Green - the analytical type. We analyze things to death, and usually need a yellow (my DW, for instance) to take action, and actually get things finished.

My pesonality shows through on this blog, how I am always posting different personal financial calculations. Well, to ring true with my Green personality, I compared my current daily interest cost with my daily interest cost last April.

Current daily interest cost - $19.95
Daily interest cost last April - $24.46

Or, each day I'm paying 82% of the interest that I was last April. I'm such a Green.

It seems as if when I run out of financial things to blog about, I list a bunch of my personal financial calculations. I've run out of things to blog about, so here goes...

Daily interest for the month of February:

First a couple of caveats -

I was comparing my Nov. daily interest to my Jan. daily interest. I was patting myself on the back for reducing daily interest by what seemed quite a bit. Then I realized that Nov. is a 30 day month and Jan. is a 31 day month. That extra day makes quite a difference. A month like Feb., even with the leap day would be even more over stated. So, I'' make my calculation using 30.4 days, the average number of days in a month. Makes for a better month-to-month comparison.

Also, I've transferred the balance of CC4 to a 0.0% card, but the transfer didn't happen fast enough, and I was charged interest in Feb. So my totals will reflect that.

Drum roll, please.

For the month of February I will spend each day:

$2.99 on credit card interest
$3.67 on above plus auto loan interest
$21.45 on above plus mortgage interest

Another calculation. In August I calculated my credit card balance to retirement savings ratio. At that time it was 20%. That is for every dollar I had saved toward retirement, I had $0.20 in credit card debt. My current ratio is 10.47%. It's been cut almost in half since August! Of course, I heard on the radio that Jan. 2012 was the best month the stock market has had since 1997.

That's it for no. If you've made it this far, thanks for reading.

Assets
House 1 $80,000
House 2 $73,000
Retirement $94,051
Autos (2) $7,440
Cecking $2,368
Total Assets $256,859

Liabilities
House 1 $103,572
House 2 $69,790
CCs $12,594
Auto $5,984
Total Liabilities $191,940

Current Net Worth $64,919

Net Worth last month $56,404

Change compared to last month $8,515

$5,941 (70%) of that change came from the increase in retirement fund.

Something tells me that the situation in Greece, or heaven only knows what other factor will send that crashing down in no time.

Assets
House 1 $80,000
House 2 $73,000
Retiement $88,110
Autos (2) $7,580
Checking $1,721
Total Assets $250,411

Liabilities
House 1 $103,771
House 2 $70,000
CCs $13,316
Auto $6,174
Accounts payable - $746
Total Liabilities $194,007

Current net worth - $56,404
Net worth last month - $54,224
Change compared to last month $2,180 to the positive.

A bit less than half of that change came from decrease in debt obligations. Checking is up a bit. Retirement is up a bit.