This Total Money Makeover book isn't helping me feel much better. I now realize that I am in denial of my debt and how bad our situation is. If I happen to lose my job tomorrow, would we make it? I think we could make the payments, but I certainly don't think we would make any head room as far as paying anything off anytime soon. Our debt would continue to grow and then we would find ourselves in A LOT of trouble!

And why is it that I feel like we are far worse than the stories in this book?! We have a mortgage, 1 car payment, 2 student loans and a bobcat loan. I think the majority of America has all of these (minus the bobcat loan) plus credit card payments and then some. On the surface that doesn't sound too bad, but when you write the numbers down on paper it is an eyeopener! We don't live on a budget, which I think is huge. It is probably the number 1 thing I am trying to avoid having to do because it is a lot of work and frankly, I don't want to, but I know it is necessary if we really want to accomplish this goal of living debt free and within our means.
What I really want is for someone to tell me we are in great shape and not to worry about it, but maybe I picked the wrong book to do that : )! That is sort of a joke!

I know we can do this. Dale and I saved about $55,000 before we built the house, but we worked our rears off for it. We lived in a dinky little spider infested loft house (it really doesn't qualify as a house) that ran on well water. We mowed the Lawson Cemetery in the summer plus had our full time jobs. Big deal, you might be thinking. Ha! You go out and try to trim around hundreds of headstones and then you come talk to me about it being a big deal. That is HARD work! But, it was worth it. I think if we knew what we know now we would have paid off all of our debt, which would have been the student loans and my car, but we put it towards the house. I think we would have made a different decision if we were making it today. Plus we spend more on the boys than we ever spent on ourselves. I love to be able to go into Wal-Mart or Target and get what I need without having to think of how much money is in my pocket. I love to provide for my boys when they need things without a second thought. But, I know if I make small sacrifices here and there I will be able to provide much more for them in the future. Like maybe a college education that they don't have to pay for. That would be nice! Or I could put my faith in them gaining full ride scholarships so either one of us will have to pay for it, but that probably isn't the smartest thing to do.

So, right now I have my doubts and I have my bullheadedness, but I still have a desire within me to make some changes. I am looking forward to getting into the good stuff of the book and getting some ideas of what baby steps I can take to get this accomplished. One thing I realized this morning is the daycare is really draining us and I have a semi cheap daycare bill compared to some other's who live around the city. I am considering starting Wyatt in preschool this winter if I can make it work. That would save us some money. I am also considering having Dale's mom watch them 1 day out of the week and when my mom gets better (have I mentioned her accident on here? That is another story for another time) maybe she could take a day during the week. That right there would save us quite a bit each week. I'm going to continue reading and keeping my mind open. Wish us luck and pray for us, would you please?

A new goal...

I started reading Total Money Makeover last night. Wish us luck. I am sure I will be blogging about it much more in the future. Thanks, Amanda for the book. Your dad dropped it off the other day.

I don’t think Dale is quite on the same page. He wants to be debt free some day, but doesn’t seem like he wants to put his life on hold now to get there. I know that might offend some of the doers, but it is just ignorance at this point I think. It might take us a little longer to get there, but I am determined to make it happen. We have always been pretty responsible, in my opinion, with money and our financial decisions. We don’t have credit card debt, but we do have student loans, a car payment, a very small bobcat loan, and the house payment. We have 3 cars and only 1 car payment. I think that is pretty good. And, honestly, the ability to have 3 cars has come in handy so many times!

One of our struggles will be selling Dale’s current truck and getting him a different truck and a trailer to haul his bobcat around on. We are hoping to get that all worked out by the summer.

I have paid extra on our house since we started paying. I have since moved that money to try to pay off some of the smaller debt 1st. We paid Dale’s old truck off, then sold it for his newer truck, which we didn’t have to take a loan on. Thank goodness. We are now trying to pay Dale’s student loan off. I have made pretty good progress on that one so far and should have it paid off in a few short months if everything stays the same and I don’t add extra money to it at this point. Before reading the book I figured we will have everything paid off in about 4 years. I am hoping I will gain some knowledge and do it much, much faster!

The other struggle we will have is working on a monthly budget for groceries and such. That is really where we go beyond what we should. We could make better choices in that area. One thing that would really help is planning out our meals ahead of time. That would help in so many ways if I could just get off blogger and create a meal plan!!!! Thankful for having good friends who offer and share ideas! So, like I said, wish us luck and if you ever have anything to add on these posts, feel free. I will even let you help me stay accountable.