I'd like to take part in this type stuff and have some accountability. But DW and I can barely stay afloat living pay check to pay check. In fact, many times, we have more week than money. It sucks. We've tried and tried to do these types of groups/posts/threads, but we don't have any luck. Zero savings, zero in the account, etc. So we don't even know where to start to make it successful.
@trenty has some good tips. Dave Ramsey's snowball is what got us started paying down credit cards. I didn't buy his book but I read all about the Baby Steps on his website and watched many of his
YouTube videos. Some of his advice I did not follow. For example, his "scortched Earth" idea of cutting spending back so much I could not do but I did reconsider every purchase to decide if it's a need or a want and tried to limit my wants and became very selective about whether it is worth spending on. I looked at every purchase as that much less I can put toward debt this month.
He also recommends stopping retirement savings. When I first started here in 2013 (hey, this is my 10 year anniversay!) I was mid 40's and dh was mid 50's and felt we are too old to stop paying into retirement. Dh had already frittered away his 20s and early 30s before we dated. It just felt foolish to stop saving for retirement, even though it certainly would speed up the debt payoff process.
His other advice was spot on for paying off debt.
Step 1: First save $1000 for a mini emergency fund. This isn't for Fri night pizza craving. This is for if your washer dies or flat tire can't be repaired, it keeps you from charging more on a credit card. To save this first $1000, either sell stuff around the house or work extra or find ways to simply not spend.
Step 2: Next, make a list of debt from smallest amount to largest amount. Pay only the minimum on all except the smallest. Do all that you can to attack it. Our smallest was only $250 on our Sears card for a lawn mower that was $25/month. It only took a few months to pay off and then it felt great to have one small "win". Just felt good to be able to cross one bill off the list. Then take that min payment that was going to first bill and apply it to 2nd bill on the list. So in my example, that $25 that was going to Sears, was then going to bill #2,
Amazon card for kitchen faucet. I think that was $300 and $25/month. So now it's getting $50/month and paying it off takes less time than it did for bill #1. Keep going down the line, keep paying minimums on all the larger ones and keep attacking the smallest. Your montly payment amount will keep growing, hence the Snowball name.
By the time I got to the bigger ones, like $8k and $10k, my monthly snowball was like $800. So even though that $10k bill felt like the size of mountain when I first started, by the time was snowball was that huge, each month it was chomping huge bites of that mountain, so that it still didn't feel like it was taking very long.
I made a list (Word document) of each paycheck for the month and a list of bills that each check needs to pay. On the check that would have paid the $25 to the Sears bill, instead it went to Amazon or Chase, or Citibank or whatever that next goal was. I still wasn't disciplined enough to just make monthly payments. Some weeks our paychecks had $0 snowball and other checks had several bills on the list that were paid off which means they're part of the snowball now. After a short time, I was very excited when it was time to pay bills so I could log in and see the lower balance. It was very motivating. Finally making some progress instead of throwing some extra here and there and getting nowhere.
Any OT, Christmas gift money, birthday gift money, etc. all went to debt. It took 15 months to pay off credit cards. Then we attacked dh's truck loan. Then we took on some Parent Plus loans ($15k) and paid them off. Just when we could start to see the light at the end of the tunnel and be able to start on our mortgage, ds23, then 20, wanted to attend welding school so we tacked on $9k to debt. (I felt I had to help him since we helped our older ds as well with much more than $9k.) It was money well spent as he hit the $100k mark for income already this year at just 23 years old and he's saving for a house.
So we plowed through paying that off and with covid cutting out all of our travel plans, (my elderly, grieving dad has COPD and I couldn't risk giving it to him.) I needed something to attack
so finally it was the mortgage. Now that is gone too.
Ten years ago I never would have believed I could do it. I felt like I was walking along the edge of a cliff, risking my family's stability because I liked to spend money I didn't have. Like the saying goes, "A journey of 1000 miles begins with one step." So take that step now! You can do it!
As 2023 is coming to a close, I figured I'd go ahead and get the Debt Dumpers 2024 thread going. Please continue to post your 2023 recaps on the 2023 board, but as you're working on your goals for 2024 post them here!
We lucked out at the time that interest rates were low so we refinanced our mortgage and took out some equity. It paid off all our cards but didn't teach my dumb a$$ any lesson in self control or budgeting. We still had the attitude in the back of our minds that we work hard, we have good combined income, and we "deserve" this, whatever this is we're contemplating charging. 
I could kick myself.
I might edit if I can come up with more!
