2 More...

So circumstances required us to take on another piece of medical debt, but I like D with his 3 front teeth. So we had to do what we had to do. Thankfully, we were ever so blessed by God to go to a periodontist that his grandfather knows (he's a big time dentist outside our city) so we got it AT COST! Saving us $2k, and he is willing to take payments, so we are going to put his debt in with our snowball and try to pay it off as soon as possible to show that we do appreciate him performing this service.

Now on to the second piece of debt we have incurred upon ourselves. This one was not a necessity, but a want. It is at 0% financing for 24 months, and as a gift we have gotten help from my parents. This will be the last item (other than a car or home) that I want to finance anything. Even with the car, I only want to have to do that with our next vehicle purchase. I want to save, save, save to be able to pay in full from now on and not have any more car payments!

We are still plugging away on our debt, and I am currently reading Dave Ramsey's book Financial Peace, which has calmed down my house fever (do I need a house right now or am I wanting a home right now because I know a lot of people my age currently getting homes?). For us right now, we will be better apt to wait on a home. And I would honestly prefer to be debt free before getting into a mortgage.

Till another time! Thanks again for reading my ramblings, I hope that knowing we are going through something similar to so many other Americans will help you to realize you can make changes like we are! Good luck!

House Fever

Boy do I have it bad. D and I are in an apartment and for some reason I am just wanting to get into a home, with a  lawn, and the space, and the sweat equity to be put into it! But I must continue to stay focused. There are more important things for us to accomplish prior to making the big leap into a mortgage. BLEH!!! stay focused, stay focused, stay focused (maybe if i keep saying it it will happen!)

Paying Bills and Accountability

D gets paid twice a month, where I get paid every other week. So far, we have lucked out with us having our paychecks close to the same days. Here soon though it will get to be almost every other week. Things are going to be a little tight this pay period... which I can't say I'm too proud of, but that is why I started this blog. To help others and to keep myself accountable. So my question to you is how do you keep yourself accountable? Do you confide in a parent? Friend? Coworker? Do you keep track of your goals on a projection chart? Do you share your conquests with your friends?

I hope to get to share all of my achievements and financial goals with you and I hope they will happen sooner rather than later! Thanks for checking in!

Folders Folders and More Folders

If you are a person who goes by "everything has it's place" then this part will be fairly easy for you. D and I went through tons of options for how we wanted to organize our income, debt, budget and payment plans/options. We wanted to make sure we used something that would be effective and that we could easily keep track of. I started with a folder from my work. It has a few spots to put in different papers. I made a space for:

• a yearly check off on what was paid each month (to make sure we didn't forget to pay something)
• a list of our debt (we put it in our snowball order, smallest amount to largest)
• a monthly budget that displayed all of our expenses, the total of those expenses vs. our incoming money
• a calendar with the bills written out on the day (I like to see things written out this way, this may be something you can forgo if the yearly check off is enough, especially if it is written in date order)
• a list of our payment plan, the snowball debt payments that would be made to each debtor and the approximate payoff date, I love playing with numbers on excel and made an excel spread sheet. I will put up an example of one in a future post, this helps to keep me on track with my budget and to keep my goals in site!
• the last section is extra papers, in case something gets messed up or I need to rewrite something due to a mistake or something having changed

This is what works for us, and as always take as long as you need to figure out what works for you. If you don't find something that works, you are less likely to use it! There are tons of options for financial planners out on the internet, and I will be working on my own to hopefully provide to you all shortly! but in the meantime make one of your own, or find something by a quick google search!

First Steps First

Today's post will be all about goals. Like in weight loss, you have to have a goal and, just as importantly, the appropriate time to achieve it. You can't lose 40 pounds in 2 weeks, just like you can't scrounge up a $50k downpayment (unless you win the lottery/have liposuction).

So the first thing to do is to figure out what your goal/goals are. If you have a significant other, sit down with him/her and talk about what you all wish to achieve. For D and I, we wanted to have all of our debt paid off so we could save for a house. This included:

• approx. $2000 in medical debt
• approx. $3000 in credit card debt
• over $6000 in D's car loan left
• around $3000 left of my car lease, plus yearly taxes on the car that I haven't paid
• over $32,000 in student loan debt

As you can see, that is quite a bit in "the hole". We knew we wanted to see some daylight and eventually fill our hole and start building a mountain! So the first thing we did was schedule an appointment with D's local bank branch's financial counselor. We did decide to join accounts, but that is not for everyone. That took a lot of conversation and a lot of agreements and we had to come to an understanding that if we are going to combine our money then it was truly going to be our money. 

With a joint account we decided to create a budget. We wrote out everything we had to pay each month, about how much we used in gas each month, then decided to give ourselves an allowance/fun money. We took this budget to the appointment with the financial counselor and he really liked what we had done. He told us that the best thing that we had going for us is that our income is more than our outgoing, but it could be better. We decided to take a look at what we could cut. He also agreed with our goal of getting our debt paid off and introduced us to the Dave Ramsey's Debt Snowball. We took the debt that we owed and put in smallest to largest order. We started putting all of our extra money towards our first debt (which was really only a small $100 bill owed to an old hospital visit). It is a marvelous plan and I am glad we decided to go with it!

Next post, I will show you how I created our household bills and budget folder. Thank you so much for reading my ramblings, and I hope it can be of some help to you!

Welcome!

Hi my name is Courtney. I am starting this blog to show others that today's economy allows for people to get out of debt and to be autonomous in their financial decisions.

The name of this blog comes from the fact that I will be the third wife of my future husband, D. He will be my first. Through the help of each other's experiences we will be achieving a successful life and getting our finances under control.

We currently reside in a one bedroom apartment with our two dogs, O and T. We get to spend every other weekend with his very rambunctious 7 year old DJ. I have recently graduated with a bachelors and have been working full time at a local healthcare facility. D works at a local Catholic school/church.

In my next post I will let you know the simple start to getting your finances together. It wont happen over night, it definitely didn't for us. Thank you for reading and hopefully i can help you to get a little farther along with your financial freedom!