Gazelle Intense

During our journey to become debt free, the Knight and I committed to being "gazelle intense" in reaching our goal. This basically means that we always keep this goal in sight, and make the sacrifices necessary to pay off our debt, even if other people think we are crazy.

This is why we drive around in junk cars, why we shop at thrift stores, and don't go out to eat.

It's also why I am now getting up at 3:30 AM every day.

For the past 7 months, the Knight has held two jobs; from 4-6:30 AM he delivered newspapers, then came home to shower and eat before heading out to his normal full-time job. His normal job pays the bills but the newspaper job has really been the key to getting our debt snowball going, as we have already trimmed the budget as much as we could.

However, after 7 months of little sleep, the Knight has been falling asleep at his desk during the day. While his company is so far stable, they have stopped annual bonuses and froze everyone's salaries, so there are signs that they are tightening up in this economy. And in the event that they do decide to lay people off, being known as the guy who sleeps at his desk wouldn't help the Knight's chances.

So, I've taken over his route for the summer. The Knight trained me for a week and this morning was the first morning I went out and did it by myself. At first it was hard adjusting to the new schedule, but as long as I go to bed by 8:30 PM I am not too tired.

It's actually kind of nice, doing the route. I watch the sun come up while I'm driving and I'm getting a lot of exercise. The only sound is the thunk of the papers when I throw them and the birds chirping their morning songs. I actually get to think about things without having to interrupt my thoughts to tend to a child. And I've already gotten a tip, which made my day.

Best of all, each month we are sending in big bucks to our credit card. We just have the credit card and two student loans left, so we are almost done. I can't wait for the day I can yell "WE'RE DEBT FREE!"

For those out there who are also on Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover, or just paying off debt in general: I'm interested in hearing your stories, what you've done and the sacrafices you've made to get your debt paid off. Let's share our ideas on making extra money or saving money in general.

Gazelle Intense

One Thousand Gifts: #2 and #3

On Friday, I walked the Knight to the door and kissed him goodbye as he left for work.

Five minutes later, he walked back in the house. Our only vehicle was not starting.

In the past, before we started Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover, a situation like this would not only be a car crisis, but a money crisis. We would frantically try to find the money to fix the car, and either end up borrowing from our parents or putting it on our credit card. Thanks to Dave Ramsey, no more financial crisis. Instead, we had the van towed to the mechanic, he fixed the starter, and we paid him.

We just paid him.

Such as small, simple act that most people view as extremely unpleasant, and we were overjoyed to have the ability to just pay the mechanic. Without scrambling for money. Without worrying about how we were going to pay this month's bill, because all the money went to fixing the van. Without having to go through the humiliating process of calling people up to ask to borrow money.

We just paid him.

So, #2 on my list of One Thousand Gifts: we just paid the mechanic; proof that our financial situation has drastically improved since two years ago, thanks to Dave Ramsey.

In fact, after the Knight picked up the van we were so relaxed and not worried about money that we took the girls to the beach.

#3 on my list of One Thousand Gifts: Happy Days at the Beach.

One Thousand Gifts: #2 and #3

Fantastic Friday

This is the first Friday that I am going to be holding myself accountable for sticking to my goals.

I'm pleased to say that this week we did rather well. I made an effort to stay home as much as possible, because gas prices are really scary right now and gas was seriously cutting into our budget. We watched what we spent and the result was we had some money left over to put into the debt snowball fund.

I'm also starting to get back on track towards my efforts to get to a healthy weight. I joined a weight loss club for motivation and have started excercising again. This week I killed two birds with one stone: I saved on gas money and got some excercise by walking 2 miles to the local park and library instead of driving. I pulled the girls behind me in their wagon. The first day I thought I was going to die, it is mostly uphill, but it got easy pretty quickly, and I'm finding that I am enjoying the walks. I am really bummed that it rained the past three days; I miss walking already. The result? I lost 3lbs.

The Knight and I sat down recently and had a brainstorming session on ideas of how we can reach our goals quickly. It was more productive and motivating than I thought it was going to be. I finally feel that we are completely back on track, and focused once again on how we want our lives to be.

Looking forward to updating again next week!

Fantastic Friday

Lessons in Home Buying

For a few months now the Knight and I have been house shopping. Our plan is to be in our own house, or at least buying a house, by December. Anyone who is trying to buy their first house should really check out their local home buyer's program; our state's program has really helped us with our purchasing power.

One problem that we are facing when trying to buy a house is related to the rate of foreclosures in MA. In the past year alone in MA, the rate of foreclosure has risen 33%. That's huge. This, of course, makes lenders more cautious about approving mortgages and more conservative with the loan amounts that they approve. It also has made it so that no realtor will even begin to show you houses unless you present them with a letter of pre-approval.

Increased foreclosure rates have also resulted in another unexpected situation. It turns out that many people are not happy about losing their house, and they focus their anger and hate on the house itself. Since most of the houses that we are looking at happen to be foreclosures, it has made for interesting house viewing.

House #1: The former owners were angry, so they cut the oil line to the house. The house reeks of oil and there are oil stains as well. The bank simple can not get anyone to make an offer.

House#2: Again, the former owners directed their anger at the house, specifically at the walls of the house. With a sledgehammer. They also left a good amount of trash throughout all the rooms.

House#3: It seems like the sledgehammer method is popular in this area, although in this house the owners left most of the walls alone and just attacked the entire kitchen.

House #4: This house was an interesting situation. Instead of destroying the kitchen as in house #3. the owner had simply taken the entire kitchen with him, leaving nothing behind.

I want to clarify that I am in no way mocking or laughing at people who are forced to foreclose. I think foreclosure is a very traumatic and sad event for people to have to go through, and I really do feel for them. Who knows, we could end up in that position some day (although we are taken careful steps to prevent that). I'm just laughing at the irony of the situation where we are hard pressed to find a decent house in this area in our price range, and every time we do it seems like the previous owners got the best of us through their anger.

We have one or two more house viewings coming up this week. Wish us luck!

Lessons in Home Buying

Fantastic Friday: Woot Woot!

Another week has gone by, and we did fairly well.

Weight: This week for Future MILF, I maintained. And I am very happy about that. Because on Saturday I had gone to a bachelorette party. With lots of alcohol. And lots of food. Including a Chocolate Fondue Fountain with strawberries and other tasty things to smother in chocolate and devour. Then, on Sunday, I went to a wedding. More great food. More alcohol. Then, for the rest of the week I ate pretty crappy and didn't excercise except for walking. So I'm thrilled that I didn't gain any weight (yay breastfeeding!).

House: The house looks great. Did I do it? Nope. The Knight has been doing more than his fair share with housework these days. So although I have been still doing my FlyLady routines, most of the credit belongs to him.

Finances: This is where is gets really fun. Step 2 of the Total Money Makeover is going great for us. At the beginning of the week we paid off another credit card, bringing the total of debts paid off to two. Next we are attacking my David's Bridal card. And now that we are getting our taxes back, we'll be able to pay off most of my car and finally be able to stop paying insurance on it and take it officially off the road (yes, the car that we owe about $5,000 is junked and sitting in our driveway). Fantastic! We'll also be able to buy the Mermaid the Britax Regent and switch the Guppy over to the Mermaid's current seat, yay! Just when we thought it couldn't get better.....my midwife called. Seems like our insurance company decided to pay for about half my homebirth, when before they said they wouldn't pay anything. More yays! We'll use this money to attack our debt. Fantastic!

Environment: This is the one area that hasn't seen too much action. We're still using our recycling system but we plan on expanding it. Also we made a commitment to try to buy products with less packaging.

Well that it's it for this week. In general, a Fantastic week!

Fantastic Friday: Woot Woot!

Plastic Surgery

This morning I was reading the new secrets over at PostSecret and I saw this one:

What relief this person must have felt, mailing in that last bill. It made me think how much I look forward to doing the same, to being finally free of debt.

I got my first credit card when I was 16. I thought I was so grown up and cool. For the first four years, I was extremely responsible with my card. I would pay off the balance in full every single month. But, life happens. I got pregnant with the Mermaid and had to quit all three of my jobs. I was unable to pay the balances off in full. By the time I was four months pregnant, I had about $1,000 on the card.

When I was about six or seven months pregnant with the Mermaid, the Knight and I foolishly moved out of his parents house into our own apartment. The Knight was working at a different job and earning less than half of what he earns now, I was still in school.

At first everything was fine. But, life happens. My commute to school was an hour and a half long both ways, so as you can imagine we were putting a lot of money into gas. Gas prices went up. My car broke down a few times. Pretty soon we were relying on our credit cards to get us by. Groceries went on the cards. Christmas went on the cards. We even used the cars to pay utility bills! Pretty soon we were way over our heads in debt. Something had to be done.

My mother offered us the top level of her house to live in so we could pay off debt and save for a house. We stopped using the cards. But because we didn't really know how to go about it, we were unable to save money and put a dent in our debt. Every month we would wonder, where did all the money go?

So we decided to do Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover. And we are doing much better. We know where our money is going, because we have a written budget. The first step of the Total Money Makeover is to build a small emergency fund, so that if an unexpected emergency occurs (car breaks down, fridge breaks, etc.) you wouldn't have to use a credit card to get by. It took us almost a month, but we finally have our emergency fund. Which means that we no longer need to keep our credit cards around in case of an emergency. So, Saturday night the Knight and I got plastic surgery. We cut up every single one of our credit cards. How relieving! How empowering! With every snip of the scissors we said NO MORE! No more being a slave to debt! And this is our result:

We are now on Step 2, the debt snowball. I have a great feeling about this. I know that we will get out of debt as soon as possible. And then, I will know what it feels like to be in the same position as the person that sent in the secret. I will know what it feels like to be debt free.

Plastic Surgery

Friday Night

Not much of a day today. I'm still stuck at home due to lack of a car. Currently my car: has a flat tire; has no brake lights; has an expired inspection sticker; is overdue for an oil change; and the check engine light is on.

Man, I would kill for a minivan right now.

Our plan is to trade in my car hopefully soon so we can get a van. It is so incredibly crowded with both the kids and all their stuff, and I really don't feel safe in that little car anymore (VW Jetta). We haven't gotten a van yet because of ....money.

Lack of money is why we are living in my mom's house.....why we are doing some serious budgeting for Christmas....why we have to question every purchase we make, asking ourselves, "Is it something we really need?"

Don't get me wrong, we are doing good. We've paid off a lot of our debt. And I know we could be a lot more worse off. I'm thankful that the Knight has a reliable job, that he has consistently gotten promotions and raises that helped us to pay of debt, that his hours are great and he gets so spend time with the kids.

Oh, but to be able to go out just once and buy myself new clothes without feeling guilty. Or I should say, to be able to go out and just buy new clothes!

Don't mind me, I'm just bumming today. I have to look on the positive side of things. Real Estate prices are going down. And I'm going to get a job soon, and that will help. I've applied to one company and I plan on applying to more. I really need a part time job. Wish me luck!

Tonight: my ex-step-grandfather's wake, followed by pictures and dinner with the IL's. Have a good night everyone!

Friday Night