On the road to debt free...Baby Step 1

Money and budgeting has always been an interesting topic to me. A frustrating one too. Recently I read two books by Dave Ramsey http://www.daveramsey.com/ Financial Peace and The Total Money Makeover. (If you can only read one, I recommend TMM.) This guy is simple and to the point and tells you some great tips on how to get out of debt. He also dispells most of the lies our culture feeds us about debt and money. One of the things I like best about him is that he is a Christian and he believes that the wealthiest people are that way because they GIVE. I love to give, my resources just don't always match the need. That is frustrating.

We have tried many different things over the years, and some have worked better than others. I used to figure out everything, pay the bills and give Joe some money to have in his pocket for what he needed. He didn't know where our money was going and never knew how much we had or didn't have so we decided that he would take it over. He did a much better job at it than I did, because he is a saver and I am a "pay it off as fast as you can" type. But we were starting to get in a rut again, because he was doing all the budgeting and work on this and I was oblivious to where we were at. Dave suggests that we BOTH do the budgeting and decide where every dollar will go every check. What a novel idea!

The book is full of real life stories of people who were so much farther in debt than we are, but made it out. We feel relieved that our cars are paid for, our credit cards are paid off and all we have to get rid of to be debt free is a HELOC and our mortgage. My goal is to be done with those in less than 10 years. We put the credit cards in the oven over the weekend to see if they would shrink like Shrinky Dinks. They didn't do much of anything except get rubbery while they were hot. Then we shaped them and let them cool and chopped them up. Very freeing!!!!

Now, you may ask, why is she blogging about this?? It is because I am so excited about this plan and I want other people to see that it is possible to get out of debt and no longer be sold the lie of American Consumerism. (greed)

So, Dec. 4th, we started Baby Step 1-Save $1000 fast. Today we have $645. We hope to have Baby step one done by Jan 31.

Think you can't do it? Read the book, there has to be someone who was worse off than you that made it out. There is hope!!