Baby Steps or Crazy Steps

As I sat here at home with a sort of empty feeling I felt I ought to just spill my thoughts and feelings. Part of this whole journey is to document how we are doing this debt reduction. I mean, debt FREEDOM. We are not reducing debt, we are getting rid of it. It is by far the hardest thing my most favorite man and I have ever done. We love our kids and our future too much to just throw our money away in interest and on unnecessary things.

As I write I am overwhelmed, yet relieved. We have been selling many things as I stated before. As of today, we have gone as extreme as selling our main, nice vehicle. I have just a few hours before we hand over the keys and title. I feel so good and excited, yet sad all in one. I did bring two of my babies home from the hospital in the car. We have gone camping packing the car to the rim with stuff. We have gone to the snow and had our first family trip to get a Christmas tree in this car. It is nice, it runs great, it looks good too. You may be asking, "why sell it then?" Because we are doing everything that we can to get debt free. And as quickly as possible. That car payment each month will now be gone. That $430 will be used and carried over to the next thing we are working on. We did take a hit however, on selling it. We will owe a couple thousand more but we did just eliminate our debt by $9,000. WOW! When you look at that it makes it all worth it. Plus the previous monthly payment we had on it goes ALL towards things owed. We will see a pretty big snowball going on really quick! I truly believe that we will see and exceed our $14,000 goal for 2009. And we ahve only been on this plan since January 30 THIS YEAR. I honestly think we may get to reevaluate it really soon.

There is one bad thing though. We now are in need of a vehicle and fast. We have been looking but it is hard to find what will work for us and in the price range we have. We are now going from "looking" to "extreme need". Now is not the time to be picky. If it runs well and gets us where we need to go, then it will be just fine. I may be a little embarrassed to drive it but it is temporary. Few years right? I sure hope so.

Many people that have done this program continue to live very simple after becoming debt free. They just add to that savings. They save for a small amount of time and pay cash for their things. What a beautiful thing. That is where my thoughts need to be as I say good-bye to a silly ole material item.

I will leave with one last thought. It has carried me through this past three weeks and will be one of the only things to keep me going some days.....

When people start questioning what you are doing in this plan, you know that you are doing the right thing! So keep on doing!!!!

I am going to attempt to make homemeade laundry soap sometime in the near future. This should be good, and interesting. So stay tuned.