Mogul In Training

I made my last lump sum payment of $819.63 to my Chase Mastercard!!! It feels sooo good to be free of credit card debt! I just need a moment to take that in.....*Exhales*. Now, I'm not one of those people who despise credit cards and preaches how they are evil. I have always known that credit cards are DEBT and MUST be repaid. Therefore, I have always used them responsibly--even when I did carry a small balance here and there. After completely paying my cards of, though, I have a completely different feeling about carrying a balance--I will NEVER do it again. And to ensure I never carry another balance, I'm only going to use my American Express Optima (no annual fee) to ensure that I pay the balance each month. Being free from credit card debt is a WONDERFUL feeling....

On the issue of the doctor's bill...It turns out I did have a credit in the amount of $1100.00. But instead of being transferred to the physician's bill to pay down that balance--which is a little over $1,700.00--only $700.00 can be transferred because my doctor's bill has increased to $400.00 to pay for my first follow up visit after my surgery. So, after the $700.00 transfer, I will owe approximately $1000.00 to the physician. That wouldn't be so bad...but, of course, there's always a catch. My initial follow up doctor's appointment was to test my thyroid levels because now I'm on complete thyroid hormone replacement. I was originally prescirbed 125mg of Synthroid (thyroid hormone), but upon receiving the results of my blood test, it was determined that my thyroid levels were too high. As a result, my medication has been reduced to 1000mg. I have another doctor's appointment on August 18th, for yet another blood test to determine if 100mg is the correct dosage. At approximately $400 a test--after insurance payment--this could get expensive. Of course, I'm praying 100mg is the magic number. After my second follow up doctor's visit and subsequent blood test, my total medical bill will be approximately $1,400.00.

Once the medical bills are paid, the only other debt I will have, besides my mortgage, is my student loan balance owed to Sallie Mae to the tune of $5,526.49. The plan is to have both bills paid off by the end of the year *Keeping fingers crossed and sending a silent prayer that I can make my goal and be debt free by the end of the year*.

I am steady knocking out the last of my debt. I only have $800 remaining on a credit card and I'm down to $5,533.52 for my student loan. The plan was to pay $400 for the month of July and August and have the credit card paid off. I was going to make lump sum payments on the student loan and have it paid off by the end of the year. Now the catch...I paid a few dollars less than $2500 for my thyroid surgery, which was supposed to be the only amount I would owe based on my insurance's hospital stay deductible. However, when I called to find out the balance on the account I was told the remaining balance is over $1700.

The $1700 balance is the physician's bill and not the hospital's. I was assured the $2500 I paid went to the hospital and as a result there would be a credit to the hospital portion of the bill, which would be transferred to the physicians bill. This would leave a balance of $0 for the physician's bill. I just have to wait for my insurance company to process the claim. Hopefully this happens, but I'm not the most trusting of insurance companies; so I'll see how it all plays out. I hope I don't have a battle on my hands...but if I do, I'm up for the fight.

Provided the physician's bill is covered as explained, I'm on track to be debt free by the end of the year...or maybe even sooner! I'm so excited that this minor set back can't even diminish my excitement. I can't wait until I can yell, "I'm COMPLETELY debt free! I'm sure it will be on this blog, and Facebook, and Twitter, and Yahoo IM, and....well, you get the picture.