Trimming the fat, paying off the debt.

For a little over a year now, B and I have been extremely focused on paying off our credit card debt with the dream of living a debt-free life.

Three years ago B had a job change, and his income was reduced by 20%. At that time we both went through a period of denial, we did not reduce our spending or overhaul our budget, and instead of coming together to plan a new budget we went our seperate ways and spent like crazy, denying the fact that the debt was piling up.

After a year of that craziness I managed to face the fact that we were in serious trouble and we absolutely had to work together and restructure our spending. B and I finally made a written budget, and I got a part-time job. Yes, I got a job. After 8 years of staying at home with my children I bit the bullet and began my evening life as a cashier, while B became full-time Daddy at night. It was very hard for us to make the adjustment, but that is another post, so I will leave it at that. The money I brought in was minimal, but we did begin to slowly pay off our credit card bills.

Then Brian had his stroke. We had medical bills on top of our cc debt. I was physically and emotionally spent. B was recovering, and struggling with every-day challenges. However, through all of these challenges B and I held onto one another and our marriage remained strong. We knew that our family and our marriage was the most important thing to us, and struggling together made us more focused on our goal of living a debt-free life.

So a year ago, last February, is when our written budget became solid, our financial goals solidified, and we really began to work together as a team to clean up our debt and reorganize our finances. We have been married for 13 years, and this past year was the first time that we have actually been openly communicating about money in a concrete, focused way. I cannot believe it took us this long, and I am sad when I think about how far we could have come financially if we had been this focused at the beginning of our marriage.

We are doing the Dave Ramsey plan. I alternately love and hate Dave Ramsey, but I will admit that his Total Money Makeover book was exactly what we needed to read last year, and working the baby steps has helped us to stay focused.

At this point we still carry about $8,000 in credit card debt, but we have no other debt except the mortgage, and our written budget is very solid. We live beneath our means now the way we should have from the beginning. Every cent I make at my job goes to pay off the cc debt, and I get an amazing amount of satisfaction from mailing my check out each month and watching that balance go down.

Our goal is to have the debt completely paid off at this time next year, and for me to return to being a SAHM. If we can do that than it will have taken us almost 3 years to clean up a mess that took less than 2 years to make. But we have learned invaluable lessons that have strengthened our marriage and our family, and led us down the path of minimalism, to FREEDOM!