Motivated!!

Wow! May is here already! Crazy, huh? This first post in May is going to focus on finances. There will be a little background in here about why I am all gung ho on getting our debt paid, our savings ripping at the seams and our budget under control. I literally woke up one day and thought about how much our debit card gets swiped. It is insane! I am ready to be done with doctor bills, hospital bills, credit cards, student loans and car payments. There is only one way to get there...

I have already told you we are going on a No Spending Experiment this month. With that being said, I want to share our current short term personal goals. One of our goals for April was to start a Christmas account at our bank. After that was completed, I just set up automatic transfers from our checking. Check!

Another goal was to list some things on Ebay, which I told you about here. I think this could go over pretty well. I obviously don't expect for me to make a million doing this, but when you are paying debt off, every few dollars toward debt can help immensely. I also spent some time putting some online money earning ideas that I can do at home into action. They have just been lingering in my email in box and I finally finished the process. It's a few dollars here and there, but it should bring in a significant amount each month.

May will have three simple goals - Put the envelope system in place, leave the money at home and get through the No Spending Experiment. I'll keep you updated!

As for the big picture of 2009, we once again are following Dave Ramsey. He has six small baby steps and we will be working on the first two for the rest of 2009.
1. $1,000 to start an Emergency Fund
This has always been in place...we just have to use it instead of a credit card for emergencies.
2. Pay off all debt using the Debt Snowball. Our goal is to have everything bu the student loan, car and land paid off my the end of the year.

• Doctor bill
  
• Doctor bill
• Credit card
• Credit card
• Credit card
• Doctor bill
  
• Student loan
• My car
• Land
  

To keep Jeremy and myself in check, all checkbooks, debits cards and the one credit card left for major emergency use will be locked in our safe. I plan to stock the envelopes at the beginning of the month and that is all we get. This will not only help us on our No Spending Experiment, but also prepare us for normal life once June comes around and we can eat out once a week again. I want to really use the cash only method...no debit card or checkbooks.

Our goals seems like a big undertaking but I am taking it one bill at a time, along with one month at a time. I will update you in June!

(Image via.)

It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it.
--George W. Bush