Joining in! I need all the motivation and encouragement I can get
We have been tackling our debt hardcore since January 2014. At the time we were in the triple digits, not including mortgage
Some of it was from stupid, unnecessary things. Some of it was completely necessary. Lots of it was just from being young and stupid with our money and not having a budget for years and years.
I am proud to say that we are now in the double digits for our total balance, but we still have a LONG way to go. I'm not comfortable disclosing the monetary amount, but if I don't have some visibility I won't stay completely accountable. So, I will say this. We have 12 medical bills, 6 credit cards, 7 student loans, 2 personal loans, 1 stupid collection, our son's private school tuition, 1 car and padding our savings account.
And I know many people will disagree with this, but although we are working hard at paying all this off, we aren't giving up 100% everything that we could to do so. We want to teach our kids the importance of budgets and how to be smart with their money. However, we also do not want to deprive them because of OUR mistakes. Plus, I know us and if we got rid of every single "fun" thing in our life we would crash and burn. Quick. So, yes, we do have cable and we go to the movies sometimes, or to the fair or to Chuck 'E Cheese. And, yes, we have a trip we are planning that we don't intend to cancel. But we are working hard on not going out to eat so much. Every time we come in to unexpected money we put 75% towards debt and 25% towards our fun fund. We are using the snowball method and so far it's working for us.
So, in a nutshell that's our story. Can't wait to read everyone's success stories