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

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Wow — already?!

I can hardly believe it has been a year since we started on the road to financial peace. First, a thank you to all of you who follow our journey and offer encouragement. To those of you doing it with us, HIGH FIVE!

So how are we doing? It’s been 12 months since we started this journey and this blog.

For 12 months we have …continue reading

If it were tangible, is this what momentum would feel like? In my soul 2010 already tastes like a great year.

It’s hard to put my finger on why, but after starting 2009 at the bottom and watching our lives turn around, 2010 seems to stretch ahead of us full of promise and I’m excited. …continue reading

Isn’t it interesting how we attach significance to some numbers? Turning 40 is over the hill. $99 is a much better deal than $100. 5 miles over the speed limit is okay.

As this decade ends today I find myself weighed down with the importance of looking back ten years at where I was, what I did and, maybe more importantly, what I didn’t know.

Certainly nothing makes this ten year span more important than any other, but what the heck. …continue reading

While I truly hope you all had as lovely a Christmas as I did, I cannot imagine that’s possible. My condolences.

It has been a stunningly wonderful holiday season. And not only was it all done with cash, we even paid down another thousand dollars of our debt.

At The Wife’s insistence we had a Christmas sinking fund and spent it on the kids; $100 each. That may not seem like much, but it was enough and generous grandparents from both sides of the aisle made for lots of love and plenty of presents to unwrap. …continue reading

It was one year ago last week that I was laid off and our financial tail-spin began in earnest. We came financially unraveled so quickly my memories of last November are more vague feelings of swimming in a fog than actual images.

One year ago I was tearing down Halloween, pretending to care about Christmas and sinking into a sense of hopelessness about money and finances.

We had no emergency fund, did not budget our income, had nearly $50,000 of unsecured debt, owed $30k more on our house than it was worth, had a small fortune in medical bills from The Wife’s fight with 400 pounds of falling building materials, and were in a leased 2008 Mazda CX-7. …continue reading

Do you have one of those months each year? A month that simply outsmarts you? I do.

For some reason our lives gravitated to October as though it were the only month of the year. Financially October is my speed bump and I am growing to accept it.

There was a time in my youth when October was just the month that had Halloween. It was the month that began the holiday season. The month when the air got crisp and chilly. The best time of the year. …continue reading