A question for Gazelle's???

[Tink-n-MrIncredible]

For those of you who are and/or have been in Gazelle mode to pay off debt. How did you do it? What are some of the things you wish someone had told you when you started going Gazelle that would have made a big difference?

 

[tinker&belle]

Go super gazelle when you decide to go gazelle because your gazelle will get very tired after awhile. Dave recommends trying to get goals accomplished in 2 years or less. We felt a considerable amount of fatigue around 18 months.

 

[owenbyd]

We had to make some goals along the way. We opted to slow down BS2 in order to have a bit of a life (I was working 2 jobs - 1 4 days a week and the other a 40-hour...when we got caught up an a bit paid down (1/2 way through) we slowed my 2nd job schedule to 2 days).

Paying off things helped me feel more accomplished. Heck, just *having* an Emergency fund at all was eye opening. I'm also a spreadsheet person, so I liked the numbers going down and plugging in those payments

 

[jmartinez1895]

No matter what start your emergency fund first. We decided that while Dave is very smart, we wanted to pay off our debt pronto. Then I had to have emergency surgery and guess how I had to pay the copay's...credit cards. ALWAYS start your emergency find first ( just like Dave says).

 

[MapleGirl]

Love your budget and update it daily. Ours is a weekly budget that shows a month at a time. We project about 4 months out at a time.

Get pumped about paying off your debt by doing projections of your snowball and seeing how long it will take you to get rid of your credit cards.

Set goals - weekly, monthly, yearly. We have a goal for 11/11/11. Congratulate yourself when you reach your goals.

Good luck and congratulations on starting to LLNO! You can do this!

Here are a few things we've done/do to help save some money:

• cancel cable and watch your favorite programs on hulu the next day
• every 6 weeks have a 'pantry/freezer week' where you don't grocery shop (or only get a few staples) and just eat what is in the house
• carpool to work
• sell stuff in the attic on craigslist or ebay

 

[DawnM]

We too had to really sit down and get a budget together and think of what our priorities were.

We didn't cut out everything and we budgeted for things we wanted to keep. Primarily that was inexpensive Disney trips (we do Disney cheap and most people have no desire to do it the way we do!) and Satellite TV.

Our heat pump/ac unit died in April the first year we were going Gazelle. Since it was the upstairs unit, we moved everyone to the downstairs 2 bedrooms for the entire summer. We were determined to pay off our consumer debt and student loans AND have the $4,000 in cash to pay for the unit before getting a new one.

Our kids still talk about that being a fun summer of camping out! And they remember that we were committed to not having debt.

Dawn

 

[kim929]

We too had to really sit down and get a budget together and think of what our priorities were.

We didn't cut out everything and we budgeted for things we wanted to keep. Primarily that was inexpensive Disney trips (we do Disney cheap and most people have no desire to do it the way we do!) and Satellite TV.

Our heat pump/ac unit died in April the first year we were going Gazelle. Since it was the upstairs unit, we moved everyone to the downstairs 2 bedrooms for the entire summer. We were determined to pay off our consumer debt and student loans AND have the $4,000 in cash to pay for the unit before getting a new one.

Our kids still talk about that being a fun summer of camping out! And they remember that we were committed to not having debt.

Dawn[/Q


ok, now you have me curious as to how you do Disney. I keep trying to get a budget going, my husband for some reason keeps fighting me...

 

[DawnM]

Kim, I have posted it several times, so it isn't any big secret.

Usually we do it this way:

$750- Y.E.S. homeschool days tickets (Sept or January)
$300- transportation (we drive)
$200- SkyAuction.com blowout condo including tax
$120- Dog Sitting


We eat most of our own food and even bought a backpack cooler (at Target, Igloo brand) so that we can take our own food in.

We do have a Disney Visa and if we have any rewards on there we use it for food in the parks. If not, we may budget some for food in the parks, we may not (the boys often prefer to use our Disney rewards on Legos than on food!)

Dawn

 

[arthur06]

Not to hi-jack this thread, but how do you go about getting a budget going when one income is so variable.

I have a salary plus bonus pay system. So, every two weeks, my pay never changes (unless there is bonus money, but I don't count on that in a budget). However, DW has a job that some weeks she works one day and other weeks she works 6 days.

 

[mrodgers]

Not to hi-jack this thread, but how do you go about getting a budget going when one income is so variable.

I have a salary plus bonus pay system. So, every two weeks, my pay never changes (unless there is bonus money, but I don't count on that in a budget). However, DW has a job that some weeks she works one day and other weeks she works 6 days.

Budget only for your income (not counting bonus). My wife works part time and I do budget for her income, but the income is low, basically the lowest she has gotten working only 3 days through the week. So, anything more than 3 days (6 for a pay period) is pretty much extra for a snowball or whatever.

If Wifey is working sometimes only 1 day, and other times 6 days, then you can't count on that to pay bills, same as we can't count on my wife having a 5 day income every single week.

 

[tweedlemom]

Not to hi-jack this thread, but how do you go about getting a budget going when one income is so variable.

I have a salary plus bonus pay system. So, every two weeks, my pay never changes (unless there is bonus money, but I don't count on that in a budget). However, DW has a job that some weeks she works one day and other weeks she works 6 days.

My husband's income was stable, whereas mine fluctuated. We based all our living expenses on his salary alone. My paychecks went directly to paying off debt. First we paid off the smallest CC, then rolled that payment into helping to pay off my car, then rolled both those payments into paying off DH's car, then finally rolled all three of those payments into paying off DH's CC. We are now debt free except our home! I know we will eventually have some debt again (when we have to buy new cars) but not relying on my salary has totally helped us go gazelle with our debt payments. Any tax return $ and/or bonuses DH gets from work used to get divided in half: half to the debt closest to being paid off and half to the savings account. Now that our debts are paid, half goes to the savings account and half goes to boosting our sons' college savings. Our 6 month emergency fund is in place as well. Good luck to you! You can do it!

To the OP: My advice would be to cut down on eating out and snowball your payments. Also, we save $20 cash every week in a box on DH's dresser. By the end of the year, we have over $1000 to use for our family's summer actvities. Instead of ordering pizza, we make mac and cheese and put the $20 cash in the box upstairs. It adds up!

 

[Jeff_G]

I too am finding the 18th month mark to be sort of hard, plus my grocery budget was 15% higher this month!! Luckily my gas budget was set from the last gas hike and I never adjusted it so we might be ok this summer….