Day 7 - Snowball your payments and Dave Ramsey

Day 7: Snowball your payments

Day 7 - Snowballing your debt, is a good time to start talking about the Dave Ramsey total money makeover. As NCN talks about his day 7 of his ways of reducing debt, he is referring to what Dave Ramsey likes to call snowballing your debt. What he means is to start with your smallest debt and begin paying that off while making minimum payments to your other debts.

Here's a little of what mine looks like:
I have 4 credit cards, one with $450, one with 3900, one with 7700 and one with 11,000. On my lowest credit card with $450, I will pay about $50 per month for 9 months to pay it off. During that time on my other cards I will pay minimums of about $75, $150 and $250. When the first card gets paid off I will add that first payment to the second lowest debt to start making a $125($75+$50) payment. When that is paid off I will add that payment to the next lowest debt to make a $275 payment. As you see the payments get higher and the time to pay off the debt gets shorter. I believe it will be a great motivator.

I am hoping to pay off that first one soon and we will see how the snowball will work!! I am going to try and put any extra money I have into our debt. I already lowered my input into my 401k about $250 per month, so I am hoping that will help. I am also selling some things and getting a emergency fund started. We are getting what Dave Ramsey calls "Gazelle intense"! Hoo-Raa!

Craziness and a Budget

My summer is officially busy. I did not think that I would not be able to sit down and write something for the last two weeks, but here I am at five-something in the morning doing just that. I am usually off to work by now, but I have a dentist appointment this morning, so I could get a few minutes in. It seems like since we left for vacation back on the 9th, we have had something going on every night! I can't complain, though. We were invited to do some very nice things without spending any money, so it was a blessing.

We were able to write up a budget in the last two weeks that has really been an eye opener for me. It looks like we are about $800 over budget every month. We really need to push that number down, and I am looking for a part time job that will help. My wife is also trying to work a little more than she has. She doesn't work much as it is because she is a stay at home mom, but I think we are realizing that needs to change a little. Hopefully I can find something part time that fits around my schedule and that can help us get over the hump!! I am going to continue writing about the 33 ways of reducing debt while also commenting about Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover. I will also update the job and budget situation. Until then, everyone can just mail me small unmarked bills dirctly to my house...

Vacation Time

I just got back from Lake Tahoe this Monday, and it has been crazy. I will be continuing the 33 days and also blogging a little about Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover. A friend of mine gave me the audio book, so I have been listening to it when I can. It is pretty motivating, so I will comment soon on all of it! As for the vacation, we kinda spent a little, but we had to sell some stuff to pay our mortgage anyway, so that helped with the vacation.
Some other news regarding buying stuff and losing it: During our girls birthday party, I was pushed in the pool with our digital camera and my cell phone in my pocket . I was a little upset, but what could I have done? That those things aren't worth anything anyway? Well, maybe a little. I am not mad about it, just another gadget we need to buy...eventually...again. Both seem to be broken, so we will be saving for one or maybe getting one for a present next Christmas... Anyhow I must get to bed, I have to get up early for work!! Speaking of work, I am kinda looking for a part time job to work after my existing one....God is always good.

Day 6 of 33 - Reducing Debt "Share your story"

Day 6: Share Your Story

Sharing my story is what I am doing right now. I am so glad I did this because it has helped us to get the ball moving on reducing our debt. We have talked with good friends, found good information and started to take action against our debt. Since I have started blogging this, we have created a (temporary)budget, consolidated our credit cards and kept up motivation to continue the struggle.

I am really fortunate to have great friends and family. I am currently trying to find a part time job in order to get back in positive territory with our finances. I am pretty picky when it comes to jobs, so it may take a little while. I have to be picky because I work a pretty demanding sales job about 10 hours a day. Anyway, I will continue to share my story and hopefully my success with getting out of debt!!

Day 5 of 33 - Reducing debt "Eat out Less"

Day 5: Eat out Less

How much could we save if we all didn't eat out?? How much could we give to organizations that deserve it??

This is a pretty simple one for me to respond to because we do not eat out anymore. At all. Maybe an occasional treat for the kids, or a special dinner for anniversary, but nothing else. Of course this has to come on the day I scrounged up $3 to go get a Double Double from In-n-out because my family just left me for a few days. Worth every penny. Literally. I will be joining them tomorrow in Lake Tahoe. Hopefully it will not be as hot. I think it was 110 degrees here today. Caliente Hot.

One small step for debtkind...

This afternoon I made a decision on consolidating my debt and applying for a 0% credit card. It lasts for 15 months and get this - no transfer fee! I consolidated the two larger cards ($10k and 8.6k) and still have the smaller one to pay. Since it is the same company as the one who offered the 0%, we cannot put the smaller one on there. Pray that we get approved, because I'm sure our debt to income ratio is pretty high. Credit card companies are well known for accepting just about anyone, so I'm pretty sure they will accept us. Hopefully that will lower some of the monthly payments we are donating to the conglomerates.

Some of our friends came over tonight and gave us some good stuff to go over. Dave Ramsey's total money makeover on audio book. I will be driving up to Tahoe later this week, so I will be listening to that on the way.

We also decided that we will be making a plan to try and reduce debt. I read in a blog last week that posting the plan helps you put it into action. We talked a little about our plan - but now we need to post it in the house and put it into action. By the time we get back from vacation this week, I will have hoped to have a plan for the next few months together and posted in our house. As for the 33 days of reducing debt, I hope to post a little while on vacation, but we'll see!

4th of July and Day 4 of 33 - Reducing debt

This is the posts of 4's! Before I get into day 4, I have to say, by opening up this dialogue with many of my friends this last week or two, I am very blessed. My friends and family have been very supportive and willing to help out. I am looking forward to spending the latter half of this week(4 days) in Lake Tahoe with my family and being able to relax a little. I hope everyone had a great 4th of July. God Bless America!!

Day 4: Extra Payments, Extra Deposits
This is a simple process of making extra payments to your creditors and yourself. NCN tells us in this blog to just try and make an extra payment to your creditor. Here it is in his words: "Remember, most creditors base the amount of interest they charge you on your daily balance. So, get those extra payments in as soon as you can, and you’ll reduce your monthly interest charges." I never looked at it that way. Less interest=less debt.

I have been contemplating two things right now, and whatever step I make wil be the plan we use to eliminate the debt.
#1: Go with a credit counseling agency and pay them an extra fee to help lower my payments, or...
#2: Transfer my balances to a 0% credit card for 12 months and pay the $90 one time fee on each transfer. 3 cards=$180 max.
I am curious about anyone's experience with this. I have never done either one of them. Please let me know what you think by posting...

3rd tip from NCN - Sacrifice

Day 3: Sacrifice

Sacrifice has been a part of our lives for probably over a year. When we moved in to our new house 2 years ago, we had the extra income to sustain going out to eat with friends and "date nights". Actually we didn't, but we were living like we did. As my income started to drop, we didn't address the debt that started to accumulate.

Sacrifice is needed now more than ever, and we are trying hard to eliminate anything and everything in our lives that we do not need. Here is my list of things we have eliminated:
Netflix, Daily Newspaper, date nights, eating out, coffee, sports leagues and the gym membership. We never had cable, although we could get rid of the basic cable antenna that we pay for. Another thing we have yet to get rid of is Tivo. I still think the issue is not having enough money every month to pay the bills. Maybe there is a way around that, but I haven't seen it yet.