Interesting Articles on living without Credit Cards

This morning when I was looking through the news I saw an article that caught my eye. Actually it was a series of stories about 5 people who decided to live without using credit cards and only using cash and debit cards. The article from CNNMoney.com had some very interesting points and some points that I did not agree with also.

Two of the 5 people in this series had either stopped paying on the debt they racked up or negotiated payment settlements with the credit card companies. I do not know their situations in depth, but I find it very hard to rationalize walking out on a debt owed.

John Wilder simply stopped paying on $12,000 in credit card debt. This is a relatively small debt in the grand scheme of things to just say, nope, I am not going to pay you back!

Dawn Tulman and her family negotiated payment settlements for their debt. They admitted hey we are in way over our head and we will do what we can to pay you back as much as we can. This is much easier to swallow, especially with a family to raise and being self employed.

Most people try to justify this action with the a statement similar to "it was the credit card companies fault, they raised rates, or they would not lower payments, or they expected to me to pay on time..." And they also held a gun to these peoples head forcing them to purchase stuff they really did not need.

I know there are situations where people do get in a ton of debt through no fault of their own and have no way out and have to ask for help or protection from creditors, but the vast majority of people have brought it on themselves. I can say this with no apprehension and without looking down on people! I know, we did this to ourselves by having no patience in waiting to purchase things and making bad financial decisions.

Some of the key things that I liked about this article was points such as 1) keeping track of all purchases 2) budgeting and planning for future expenses 3) waiting 1 week to make a decision if you really need that impulse buy 4) setting money aside in savings as a cushion and for emergencies.

We still have not our budget yet, we keep making excuses and putting it off. But we need to set a hard date of January 1st to set our budget and stick to it. Otherwise we will never get out of debt. We continue to do much better on many fronts, but still need to make the commitment of a cash based budget. And I really need to cut out the pop and junk food at work!!!!

Love & Respect

This weekend Sherry and I went to an excellent marriage seminar called "Love and Respect" This seminar was put on by Sarah and Dr. Emerson Eggerichs. The entire seminar and accompanying books focus on one bible verse "However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband." Ephesians 5:33. I did not realize all of the truths wrapped up in this one verse.

I now feel like the devil was trying to keep us from going and then tried to sabotage are time there. I went into this weekend with a bad attitude. I was sick most of the week leading up to this and Sherry and I had been arguing about where the kids would stay. On Friday night we had a very nice and relaxing dinner with a lot of friends before the event so that cheered me up. But after we got to the event the auditorium was packed and the chairs were small with little to no leg room. The room was hot, I was feeling worse and very claustrophobic, I could not concentrate and was wishing I was back home.

I finally got up and went to the atrium area and sat at a table with plenty of room and watched from there. Sherry joined me at the break and the rest of the evening was OK, but I was just in and OK mood.

However this morning after a nice breakfast with Sherry and then sitting comfortably out in the atrium again I really got into the seminar. I felt like they were talking directly to Sherry and I and had been sitting with Sherry and I a few times and listening to our arguments, and hurtful words back and forth. Again the concepts they taught were pretty simple, however we have been like we are for years, and it takes awhile to break out of these bad habits. With this seminar and prayer we will break through this.

We would strongly recommend that every couple go through this seminar! Especially if you have or plan on having kids. It is common knowledge that our kids learn more from what we do than they do from what we tell them. We need to model our marriage to be healthy so that your children will act this way growing up and hopefully model theirs the same way.

There are two books that contain a majority of the concepts taught at this seminar:

----And ----

God Bless You,
Brian

A selling we will go!

OK, some things are going good others are not. We have cut back on our expenses and been selling items. However we have not cut back as much as we should and still have not finalized a budget. So far we have sold over $400 in stuff. $125 for a exercise bike/clothes hanger and another $200 plus in DVD's and some books on Amazon.

Here is a link to the DVD's that we have left: DVD's

I am working with Sherry to finalize the list of Pampered Chef items. My mother in law has what she wanted so we will be pricing and putting up a list of items on here shortly. Just in time to buy some gifts for Christmas!!!

I will keep you posted on our progress. By January 1st we will have a budget in place and living by it.

Sell it all!! Part 2 - DVD's

OK, I have found most of the DVD cases for our movies and have them paired up. I do not think I can attach files in here but I have lists of the movies we have in PDF format. They have pictures of what the cover looks like and some details of what they are.

Here is a link to view all the DVD's, they are in a PDF format.

View Movies

I am asking $5 each for the DVD's.

I am also bugging Sherry to finish our Pampered Chef list of items to sell. Trying to coerce to not want to keep it all. Once we get the list finalized and I send it to my mother in-law for first pickings (Have to stay in good graces!!) I will post that list also!

Thanks Guys!

The Specifics

The worksheet I used to help determine when we would be able to pay off our debts using the Snowball strategy is at: http://www.vertex42.com/Calculators/debt-reduction-calculator.html

It is a very powerful spreadsheet that runs you through different strategies for paying down your debt. You can sort them in order of amount, interest rate, or a custom order. It will also calculate how long it will take only making the minimum payments without using the snowball formula. This one gets pretty depressing showing how much you will pay in interest and how long it will take.

Using the Snowball Strategy with paying down the smallest debts first we would be out of debt completely with the mortgage paid off in May of 2019.

Using the strategy of paying highest interest first we would be done in May of 2019, however we would have paid approximatly $2,000 less in interest.

If we simply pay only the minimum payment and do not apply the debt snowball strategy we will be done paying everything off in Feb of 2034, and pay over $160,000 in additional interest!!! Now that is depressing!

If we can stick to the plan and apply additional payments to our debt reduction plan as our pay goes up and we sell items we no longer need we should hopefully have everything paid off by 2015 or so.

I have already started to sell off things we really do not need. $135 for 3 items so far. I am working on Sherry to get the list of Papmered Chef items ready to sell as well has her baby grand piano. She still needs to get it tuned and appraised. A rough appraisal over the phone has it valued at approximatly $1500. But until he comes to tune and sees what the condition of the piano is we will not know for sure.

It is a George Steck Company Piano, I believe circa 1950, so it is solid wood, not the partical wood used today. If you are interested just let us know!!

Where is that battery charger?

Well I have a lot of things organized and ready to get on here, ebay, ALFI and any other place I can sell these things. But now I can not find the dang battery charger for our camera. As soon as I can find that I will have our recumbant exercise bike on here, a baby grand piano and anything else I can find.

Sell it all!!

One of the key strategies of getting out debt in Dave Ramsey's plan is to sell everything you can to pay down your debt. I had already started to get our DVD's organized to try and sell them so I was getting started.

We are in the process of refinancing our home, so Friday we had an appraiser come. To get ready for the appraiser we were doing a massive decluttering. Even better than spring cleaning. We have about 15 bags of garbage to go the curb. I also realized we had a lot of other things that we "needed" at different times in the past sitting covered in dust in the storage area in the basement so we are starting to get it all organized to get out of here. So I will have some things in here for sale, selling some at work in the ALFI, EBAY and on Amazon.

I am organizing Sherry's Pampered Chef supplies from when she was a consultant. I am working on a list of what she has for sale, and believe me there is a ton of stuff here. So if you are interested in any Pampered Chef items let me know and I will get you the list.

We also have a recumbant bike for sale. I will get the specs up soon on that.

High Cost of Medications

Thankfully we have insurance that covers prescriptions, but some of the copays are getting up there especially when you purchase a 90 day supply. Luckily Sherry was checking on the internet for coupons for all of our drugs. I had to refill my migraine prescription that normally costs $50 for a 3 month prescription. Sherry found a coupon for a 1 month free trial, and $20 a regular presecription. When I called the doc for a refril script I asked them to write my usual 3 month prescription and a 1 month.

I am so glad CVS is in town now as this is the only place we can go locally to get our 3 month prescriptions. I ended up getting a 4 month supply for only $30 thanks to my lovely wife!! Since they just opened a new store in our area we received a copoun in the mail for a $25 gift card if you bring in a new prescription. Sherry had one of hers to fill that did not have any coupons so we were able to get the $25 gift card on a prescription that only had a $10 copay!!

Lets Get it Started!

OK, today is the official start of our “climb out of debt”. We are documenting all of our revolving debt, home equity loan, and mortgage. Sherry and I have been talking about the mistakes we made to put us in the situation that we are in now. It was not hard to see the big culprits such as building a new home before the old one sold, building to large of a home when we only had one child and planned on two incomes, vehicle purchases and all the eating out. There are a multitude of smaller sins that have added to this debt, but I do not have enough time to list them out.

We never regret Sherry staying home with the kids. Our mistake was not planning earlier for her to stay home with them, and then not making adjustments after we made the decision. It is a hard decision to sell a “dream” house that you designed yourself. However in the end the dream was not so sweet!

Now that we have all of our debts documented we are working on a workable “debt snowball” plan to pay them off. This link from Dave Ramsey does an excellent job of describing the process and the emotional aspect of it. There are many debt snowball worksheets and calculators out there. I am looking for the one that will suit our needs the best. Once we decide on one we will post the link and our expected date of being debt free. I will also post more of our tactics and tribulations. It is guaranteed there will be some tribulations as Murphy is always around the corner lurking!

Anyway! Pray for us and check in on us from time to time to help hold us accountable!

Thanks!!!

New Addiction

Well I have been bitten by the free and cheap stuff bug. Sherry is somewhat happy about this one, i have been coming home with some pretty good deals on things we use. If I can get items dirt cheap or free I will also get them and take them into Church for the food pantry.

Hannah and I went to Walgreens tonight. Using information from Money Saving Mom and STL Mommy I was able to get over $25 of items for less than $5 cash after coupons and register rewards from last week.

Walgreens also takes coupons printed off from the internet. A lot of grocery stores do not take the coupons off the internet. Money Saving Mom and STL Mommy detail the saving you can get based on the weekly flier, coupons available in the paper and online.

Easy Money for Research

I am participating in my 3rd allergy research study. I like to crack jokes about it and make comments about growing a 3rd nostril, but it is pretty easy money for not much work. And by the time the medications have made it this far in research they are pretty safe.

I finally found something good about being allergic to rag weed and pollen. The current study pays $75 a visit. The first two studies that I participated in I was paid $299 and $399. The hardest part is filling out logs, but that takes about 5 minutes a day.

If you are interested contact Sneeze, Wheeze and Itch Associates. Or you can call them at 309-452-0995.

And I thought CVS was good!

A good friend of mine recomended checking out www.moneysavingmom.com. I did and wow tons of great tips on saving money with coupons. Austin and stopped at Walgreens after his football practice tonight and in about 15 minutes we purchased 8 items. The bill was $24 before $7 in coupons, most from the walgreens flier when you walked in the door. I ended up paying $17 and walked out with hopefully more medicine than we will need for the winter, some skin lotion for the lovely with and some floss. Oh yeah, and $21 in register rewards good on my next purchase!!

They were out of the Fusion Razor, so I will check another one on my way home for work, by the time I use my $4 coupon from the paper this Sunday, and get register rewards back from Walgreens I will be $1 ahead. Oh yeah, and I will not be using my money when I but it. I will be using the register rewards Walgreens so kindly gave me.

I am going to keep track of purchases I make with these $21 register rewards that I recieved from my initial investment of $17. I will let you know how long I can keep the streak going and how much merchandise I get in total!

And Diedre, thanks again for the tip!!

CVS is awesome! - Great way to save some money!

I finally went to the new CVS in town. I have heard from many the great deals when you use your CVS ExtraCare Card. You can usually get quality products that you use for close to if not free after all of the incentives. When I was reading more of the information this is a great program.

You will definitely want to get this card. The first benefit you receive is extra money off products in the store, they also track you spending and every 3 months you receive a check to use in store for 2%, you also get $1 for every two prescriptions you fill. There are also weekly deals where you get instant Extra Bucks to use on your next purchase.

So tonight I went in with the kids and was using coupons from the Sunday paper, and incentives from the flier. We purchased items we use all the time so we were not buying things we will not use. We bought some Tide, toilet paper, paper towels, dish soap and some other supplies as well as some medicine.

Our initial total bill before any coupons were taken off was just over $84.00. We used $7 in coupons, so our final bill was just over $77. However based on the products that we purchased we received $20 in instant Extra Bucks. We will also get extra bucks for 2% of pre tax total for $1.46. So our total cost after all of this is just under $56.

Another bonus is that we also tied our CVS ExtraCare card to our UPromise account. Some of the items that we purchased will also earn us earn us money towards our kids college education. I will right more about UPromise in another post soon.

You need to be sure to compare the prices of these deals with generics that you might already use. We did pass on some tissue that would have gotten us extra care bucks, however all things considered we are better off with the brand we always use.

To any of our friends and family who might read this we would appreciate if you would follow this link to UPromise to sign up and help us save money for the kids college education.

Dave Ramsey Says

One of my favorite authors and speakers is Dave Ramsey. His book "Total Money Makeover" is an excellent resource for anyone. I started to read Dave's books years ago after a friend told me about him. Sherry and I attended a Financial Peace University class and loved it. There is a lot to be said about gathering with others who are wanting to get their finances under control.

To learn more about Dave Ramsey and his plan go to www.daveramsey.com. There is so much to learn from Dave. He is also on Fox Business Network and on radio stations everywhere with The Dave Ramsey Show.

I would strongly recommend for anyone who is not debt free to consider participating in a Financial Peace University class. Click on the previous link to find out more information about this class and where to find one.

My goal is to be able to get out our family out of debt and be able to teach these classes. I know most of the material very well, but I am not living the life. So until I can demonstrate that we can walk the walk I can not even think of this. Without credibility I would not be doing anyone favors.

Here We Go!!!

I decided to start this blog to hopefully kick myself in the butt and start following the steps that I know we need to follow to get out of debt. The stress of debt can be overwhelming and destroys many people and families. Luckily I have a great wife that is in this ride for the long haul.

I know that best way to stay on track is to tell others what you are going to do, and most times they will hold you accountable to do these things. I have read many books, attended sessions and have the common sense of what do to. I will be making, hopefully frequent, entries of our process. I will give some tips I have learned and post some interesting links to other sources of info.

One of the things that I am passionate about is helping other people. Hopefully as we go through this process I will also be able to help others.