Climbing Out One Family’s Adventure in Becoming Debt-free

Someone in the eraser business loved me this past week. It is definitely time to switch from pencil and paper to Numbers or Excel.

Budget 1.0, may it rest in peace, has been erased and rewritten so many times I feel like we should have saved the eraser boogers for something.

It’s not pretty, but it does seem to be holding.  Budget 1.5 encompasses the last two weeks of this month and although there is not enough income to cover all the outflow it is freeing to know that every dollar is spent on purpose in advance and there is no reason we should overdraw or bounce a thing!

Yeah.  Back to that eraser again.

Dave Ramsey says it takes at least 90 days of doing a written budget to find your groove.  I can tell you that at day 14 there is definitely no groove yet.  Gas money, preschool tuition, food (oh yeah… food) and the late payment on the mortgage all led to some emergency budget meetings in the last week.

Speaking of mortage, what the hell is wrong with me?!  I was entering the payment in Quicken and shorted Countrywide $20. What?!

So calm down, deep breath.  If we weren’t already paying a late fee this month I would not begrudge them a “stupid tax” on myself for that one.

We still cannot pay everyone, but the “why” is clearly laid out on paper and on purpose.

the Dad