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Alright, this month is going to look bad, but I already broke down the math yesterday, so don’t beat me up on it. As I am leveraging $25,000 of the loan against the massive interest of my HYSA at Robinhood Banking, I will start to track the loan as if it is $25,000 lower than it is. This is because once I pay off the HELOC, I will dump the remaining loan money into the loan and pay it off.
Either way, I always try to write these articles a little bit earlier than they are due and as of writing bitcoin still hasn’t gotten back up to $65,000 – even though it broke $63,500 one day. I was able to chip away at the Robinhood Gold Card balance, with $900 in FreeCash payouts still stuck in bitcoin.
That being said, a chunk of my debt payments were eaten up by the origination fee of the SoFi loan, but as discussed previously, I will come out ahead in interest saved over time.
| 7/15/26 Real Total | Last Month Amount | Current Balance | Difference | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| USAA 1.5% | $0 | $0 | $0.00 | Still has some Auto pay items, but keeping it down. |
| Gas CC (USAA): | $0 | $0 | $0.00 | Peaked close to $300 again, but $70 should be work reimbursement. |
| Chase Cards x3: | $0 | $0 | $0.00 | Auto bills for max points. |
| Robinhood Gold: | $1,369.49 | $0.00 | – $1369.49 | Still waiting on Bitcoin auto sell @ $65,000. |
| Car Loan | $16,213.25 | $15,779.75 | – $433.50 | $500 payment. |
| 401k Loan | $32,944.01 | $31,969.97 | – $974.04 | $600 x2 payments, interest is paid to my 401k. |
| HELOC | $13,542.42 | $0.00 | – $13,542.42 | 1 $1,000 payment then SoFi Loan used to pay off. |
| SoFi Loan | $0.00 | $40,000 (True value $15,000) | $40,000 (True +$15,000) | See Sofi Article. 6.06 APY vs 10% HELOC. |
| June Total: | $64,069.17 | $87,749.72 (True total ($62,749.72) | $23,680.55 True -$1,319.45 | $25,000 isn’t real as it’s holding in savings for more interest than the loan. |
| Net Progress: | -$4,844.55 | -$1,319.45 |
A large chunk of my year has been devoted to paying debt and medical bills. So, let’s try to break down these debt payments.
| Debt | Payments YTD | Current Balance | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Robinhood Gold | $15,672.24 | $0.00 | Most bills and daily spending. 3% on everything. |
| USAA 1.5% | $19,379.22 | $0.00 | $11,000 was migrated to HELOC |
| USAA Gas Card | $1,614.89 | $0.00 | 5% cashback on $3,000 of gas. |
| HELOC | $22,522.94 | $0.00 | $22,000 was advanced. |
| Chase Amazon Card | $914.52 | $0.00 | 5% cashback. |
| Chase Freedom (Churn) | $619.41 | $0.00 | $300 bonus. |
| Chase Ink Unlimited (Churn) | $6,049.54 | $0.00 | $750 bonus. |
| Chase Ink Preferred | $1,441.00 | $0.00 | 3% cashback on Utilities. |
| Tucson (Car Payment) | $3,500.00 | $15,779.75 | 4.99% interest. |
| 401k Loan | $8,532.61 | $31,969.97 | 9.5% interest but 100% paid back into 401k. |
| Total | $80,246.37 |
Now, before we look at that and go “WOW $80,000 in debt payments — you’re swimming in money!” — lets recall that $11,000 was HELOC money paying off the USAA card, and then $12,600 was the SoFi loan paying off the HELOC, as I drove interest rates down immensely (from 20.5% to 6.06%). If we subtract that $23,600 in payments, the real total is $56,646.37, which still seems insane. I think I need to do another budget overhaul, even though my glance a month ago still appeared to be on regular targets.
Maybe I can find something positive about this bad spendy-pants behavior. Let’s count up all the cash-back money I’ve made with this spending.
| Card | Cashback |
|---|---|
| Robinhood Gold 3% | $470.16 |
| Chase Freedom | $309.30 |
| Chase Ink Unlimited | $840.75 |
| Amazon 5% | $45.72 |
| Chase Ink Preferred 3% | $43.23 |
| USAA 1.5% | $290.68 |
| USAA Gas 5% | $80.75 |
| Total | $2,080.59 |
That’s a decent chunk of cash back plus churning, but in no way shape or form should it justify that level of spending. A spending of $45,000 in credit card spending for $2,000 in total cash back means a return of 4.5% with the churning bonuses. Clearly, several items have caused the ballooning. Obviously, the surprise car repairs, the storm damage, and the $8,000 in medical bills so far for 2026 are also part of that credit card spending. To be clear, though, much of that $19,000 on the USAA card was money from the move and renovations from 2023 to 2025. $7,786.42 was the total on that card YTD, of which $2,548.03 was medical, $700 was auto insurance, and $1,107.88 was utilities (i.e. unavoidable expenses that were going to exist regardless of frugal spending), which totals $4,356.91.
It looks like this is going to lead to a big budget deep dive again. Some of that spending seems entirely unreasonable. The big $1,000 chunks thrown at the HELOC were slightly eaten up by the $1,600 origination fee, and I also altered my “dividends into debt” plan to allow my Vanguard dividends to reinvest into more shares of things, since the fluctuating pay of several of my funds dropped June below $500 a month in dividends.
Even when beating myself up publicly, I get too spendy. What is that about?
~~Miniwing~~
Investor, Parent, Stoic
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