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.

2 ways to reduce debt - from NCN blog

I will be posting my thoughts and my intended actions on the blog "33 days of reducing debt and saving money" posts in order to help myself and possibly even others. Although I doubt anyone really reads this except my wife - Hey, she hasn't even subscribed yet! Busted online! Anyhoo, here it goes.

Day 1: Eliminate Fees
The main point in this blog is to check all of your bills and accounts to make sure that you don't need the things people like to charge you for. I don't think I have too many of these, but it is a good exercise to double check and make sure. I could check around on pricing out some of my services like car insurance. I'm sure there are some annual fees that I have on some accounts that I miss. I need to start working on my budget anyway, so I will have to take out my bills this last year and check for fees!

Day 2: Brand Disloyalty
Are you basing your purchases on price and value or habit and repetition? We are very habitual when it comes to insurance or doing our taxes. When it comes to dispensable products, we buy whatever is on sale, therefore we eat whatever is on sale! His final words were: Why are you using the products and services that you are using? Are you making fiscally responsible choices? I believe that we are now, it's just that even when you are being financially responsible, you can't make up for lack of income, which is where we are.

I have to go mow the lawn, so I will be back to finish later. :)

How to Save Money and Reduce Debt in 33 Days - from NCN

This just posted on ncnblog.com's site. I am going to try and read and blog on it as much as I can. It is 33 days of reducing debt and saving money. Look for some comments later today!