In two years from now, we should be doing much better financially.  I’ll be done with my huge car payment, done with my small car payment, done with my travel trailer payment, and (I know this sounds mean but I can’t help it) we’ll be done paying child support/boarding school for my husbands daughter from his 1st marriage.  Yeah, my step-daughter goes to boarding school, her mother claims she’s “too fat” to go to regular high school, the poor girl isn’t even fat just big boned.  Besides, just how can a kid be “too fat” to go to public school?  We are stuck paying more than half the tuition for boarding school but we only have two more years to go!

In two years my credit card debt will be much lower, I’m guessing it’ll be around $25,000.  Once I get done paying all my vehicle payments and the child support I should be able to pay off the balance in less than a year.  Then I’m going to save money for an all CASH vacation!  After struggling for years with all this debt I think it’s about time we have a little fun.

In three years when we’re debt free I plan on saving money for a kitchen remodel and new flooring.   I can’t wait to get rid of that 70’s Formica counter top of mine and my carpet has been shot for years.  I plan on ripping out all carpet, except for what’s in the bedrooms and laying down either laminate or tile.  With living out in the country with lots of farm animals, lots of animal poop, dirty feet, and muddy boots, carpet does not really work for us, I need something that’s easy to clean.

I can’t imagine what it’s going to feel like to actually have some money instead of seeing it all go out every month.

Oh and I almost forgot - I’ll finally be able to get a few miniature horses!  I think they’ll come before the kitchen remodel. 

This is a little snapshot of my online statement.  They bumped up my credit line to $27,500!  Who in the heck needs a credit line that big?  I don’t even recall getting anything in the mail saying my credit line was being increased.  I’m shocked by the increase, it’s almost as if they want me to fail. Don’t worry though, I’m not charging anything!

I wonder if the increase helped out my credit score?  Now my debt to available credit looks a tiny bit better.  I also wonder if the credit line increase has anything to do with me paying all my credit cards on time all this year?

For now I think I’ll leave it as is and hope I get a 0% transfer rate offer.

I LOVE the ZERO activity!  Woo hoo go me!!!

Last week I was reading Blogging Away Debt, the topic was kitchen gadgets.  She got me thinking about all the kitchen gadgets I have that I don’t use and there’s a lot.  Honestly I don’t know what I was thinking when I bought half of them.

The other day while doing some grocery shopping I came across this banana slicer and it cracked me up for some reason.  Prior to my blogging and trying to payoff this mountain of  debt, I bet I would have been a sucker and bought this little gadget.  It’s priced at an unbelievably expensive $3.99!  I can just hear the “old me” thinking what a great idea this would be for the kids to use…. Like the kids ever slice bananas and even if they did what’s wrong with using a butter knife?

I hope I’m evolving into someone that knows to avoid a dumb purchase when I see it.

Here’s an inspirational Dave Ramsey video from his show on Fox Business. This woman and her husband from Waco, TX, paid off close to $54,000 of debt in just 18 months.

I can’t believe how much I LOVE paying bills online.  I just set up all my credit card payments for the month and it only took me about 15 minutes.  Now I’m done worrying about due dates, late payments, and lost payments.  I can’t recommend paying credit cards online enough.  I’m a happy woman!

Today I went and recycled my cans and bottles.  I ended up getting $50.71!  Woo hoo!

December 1994, I was involved in a head-on crash. I was driving on a curvy mountain road and a man who was speeding, in the USA illegally, didn’t have a drivers license, and was uninsured crossed the double yellow lines and came into my lane and hit me head on, totaling my car. I had my oldest with me, who was at the time 4 years old. We weren’t hurt too much, I had broken several bones in my foot, some broken toes and had bruises everywhere. My daughter, thankfully was fine.

My insurance company was more than generous with my car payoff. They gave me $200 more than what I had paid for my then two year old car. I really couldn’t complain.

I was wiped out for 7 months. I had developed an extremely painful bone infection in my foot and almost lost my foot. I had three surgeries (even had a morphine drip) and ended up having a “main-line” IV put in my neck that went straight to my heart. Finally seven months later, after six weeks of IV treatment my bone infection cleared up and the open wound on my foot finally healed.

Imagine my surprise when I got the call from my insurance agent saying they were going to settle with me for the maximum payout of $100,000! I was a newly married 24 year old. The most money I’d ever had prior to this was maybe $500.

So where’d all the money go? $10,000 went to my health insurance (they threatened to sue me for reimbursement of medical costs), $20,000+ went towards paying off my husband’s credit card debt, $5,000 for a backyard play system, and $5,000 for a tractor. I gave $5,000 to my mom for putting up with me and all the pain I’d been in and $1,000 to my Grandma to help her out. I also spent $200 on a D&B bag for myself. Over the years we spent another $20,000+ fighting to keep custody of my husbands daughter from his first marriage. I know another chunk of the money went towards a good down payment on a NEW (I was a sucker) Suburban. We still have a lot of that value and it’s now in my husbands truck. I’m not really sure exactly what happened to the rest of the money. I guess we piddled it away.

Look where I am now, this isn’t how my story is supposed to go. We had the best start, a better start than most people will ever get and still here we are up to our necks in debt. I wonder if I’ll ever FINALLY learn to be financially responsible?

The good news is in the next two years I’ll be paying off a vehicle and a travel trailer as well as being done paying child support for my husband’s daughter (her mother doesn’t even own a house and can’t afford to live on her own yet sends this child to boarding school and we get stuck paying for more than half).

In three years I’ll be done paying for our family vehicle.  So over the next three years I should be able to clear up $2,280 a month that I can throw at my credit card debt.

My credit card debt is well above average, no doubt about it. I’ve been asked how it got this high. This sounds bad but I’m not really sure how it got this high. Other than the two credit card checks I used last month ($3,000), I really haven’t used my credit cards in YEARS.

Here’s some things I know we charge in the past 13 years and the approximate purchase year. Most of them seem like stupid needless purchases now and I regret most of the purchases.

$4,000 Master bedroom set - 1998
$4,000 Computerized Sewing/Embroidery machine - 1998
$2,500 Tires and Rims for a vehicle we no longer own - 1996 (regret)
$2,500 Tires and Rims for a vehicle we no longer own - 2002 (regret)
$3,000 Tires and Rims for a vehicle we currently own - 2005 (regret)
$5,500 Tires, Wheels and adaptors for a vehicle we currently own - 2006 (regret)
$2,000 Tires and Rims for a vehicle we currently own - 2005 (regret)
$1,200 Quilting machine with frame - 2001 (regret)
$1,200 Treadmill - 2002 (regret)
$10,000 (guess) for various trips/short vacations - 1995 to 2005 (regret)

Those are all the major purchases I can think of right now. They add up to $35,900, that’s far short the $41,000+ I owe right now. I’m thinking the majority of the other purchase were for gasoline. I guess I’m still paying for gas I burned 12 years ago. That’s really dumb.

I think the biggest reason why we are have accumulated so much debt is because for the first 10 years of our marriage, my husband worked overseas. When he’d come home on days off, I wanted him to have whatever he wanted, I really couldn’t tell him “no”. So we’d spend with cash and then when he’d go back to work I’d try and sort it all out. If I came out short, my credit cards where there to help me out. While my husband was at work he had a horrible eBay habit that was costing me literally $1,000 +/- a month. To compensate, I’d sell stuff on eBay and the more I sold the more he spent.

Okay, let me have it!

I don’t think a day passes without me dreaming about getting rid of all my crazy debt. I can’t believe I let our debt get so far out of control. My debt feels soul crushing. I know I’ve made progress since starting my debt reduction but every time I look at my total credit card debt, I can’t help but feel hopeless.

A few weeks ago I found some old credit card statements and old credit cards, still attached to the paper they came with. I guess I’ve been playing this losing credit card game for at least 13 years! To tell the truth, I don’t really remember doing that but I saw it in print and plastic so there’s no denying it.

Lately I’ve been wondering if getting out of debt is like dieting.  They say loosing the weight is the easy part, maintaining the weight loss is the hard part.

What if becoming debt free is easy and staying debt free is the really hard part?

I’ve been blogging about my debt and life in general since February 19, 2008. Now I’m going to give an update, the good, the bad and the ugly, you are going to see it all.

If you are a regular reader of my blog you’ve probably noticed that I haven’t updated my Credit Card debt for over a month. There’s an a reason for it, as I’m sure some of you have guessed.

Last month I came up short. Yep, I even bounced a few checks (the bank honored them). I ended up using two credit card checks. $1,500 for my property taxes and $1,500 to bring my checking account back into balance. I’m totally embarrassed to admit this, as I’m sure you can imagine. The total of $3,000 is locked in at 3.9% until the balance is paid off.

Today my total credit card debt stands at $41,501. That’s a $901 increase from when I started tracking it back in February. I’m not happy at all with myself, I know I can do better. Other than using the two convenience checks I haven’t charged a single thing.

Now for the good news. I paid off my state taxes as of February the balance was $9,276. I also paid off my husband’s truck. Back in Feb the balance was $4,459.

All together I’ve paid down $12,834 since February.

I found a really cool article the other day and I’d like to share.  It’s a very simple plan to help control impulse purchases.  I know I’m guilty of making them.  Unfortunately, my credit card balances reflect my impulse buys.

Lets say something you are wanting to purchase costs $100.  If you followed the plan, you would have to put off the purchase for one whole day and during that time research the item and look around online to see if you can find a better price and read product reviews.  After a day of cooling off if you still think you need the item, it’s a wise purchase, and it’s within your budget then go ahead and make the buy.

If the item you are considering purchasing costs $1,000 then you’d put off the purchase for 10 days.

Right now my budget doesn’t really allow for any purchases, other than everyday needs.  I’m in a very tight spot financially.  I still LOVE the idea of putting off purchases and giving myself a much needed cooling off time.  I’ll be applying this same strategy but in $20 increments.

If you are interested in reading the whole article you can find it here.