We tried to have children for three years unsuccessfully & after giving up, I went back to school to finish my degree. Ironically I also got pregnant the first semester I went back but stuck it out & graduated in May 2007. Unfortunately we racked up a lot of debt between credit cards & student loans - I was only working PT while I was in school. Since I majored in education, my yearly salary was only about $4000 more than the amount I had borrowed in student loans (Did you know that $28K borrowed paid back in the 20 years mine was financed for was going to cost us over $50K). In the fall, my period was late & I panicked thinking that we financially couldn't afford to have a third child in daycare. I told my husband that if I was, we would just have to sell the house, pay off our debt & move into my grandma's house (she had died that spring & the house was sitting empty since my dad couldn't bear to part with it - they live next door). After AF finally arrived, I got to thinking, why couldn't we do that anyway & I'd be home with my girls rather than missing everything. We asked my parent's about buying my grandma's house & they gave it to us - no strings attached. We sold our house to a couple that worked with my mom. No realtor & we profited enough due to equity that we had more than doubled our initial investment on the house. We paid off a total of about $40K in student loans (dh had also pursued his masters on loans), all of our credit card debt, both vehicles (we even upgraded both of them for cash), & completely renovated her house. So now we are debt free (including mortgage ). We don't have a lot of money left over, but we owe nothing to anyone. My husband is also a teacher, so we still have to be very careful with our money - as teacher's just don't make a lot. Regardless, we are happier & life is much more simple. I have no doubt that it was all divine intervention the way everything just fell into place. We were never good budgeters, but we put much more effort into it now.

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Quality of life is not dependent on the quantity of possessions.

I just reads all of your stories and they are very inspiring. My dh and I have a lot of debt right now. Reading your stories have helped me feel that there is light,

hi there

we were reading some of these stories on debt and we ourselves to have a little bit of cc debt which we want to desperately to pay off- but everytime a expense comes in for the house or something else- big,it goes on the credit card. i feel like I am in a evil cycle.

Did anyone follow aplan to get them out of debt? Any books to read or websites for info?I was truly inspired by the single mom who paid off 35k of debt on a 30k income.

You really should check out the Forget the Jones steps. Recap of Steps

Kim has done an excellent job with this!

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"It's time to move from what we can do, to what we must do, to what we will do." ~Hillary Clinton

YOu could also use teh Dave Ramsey plan to get out of debt. That is the plan I used and it has worked great. as a matter of fact I am writing in today to say that DH and I have paid off $4710.00 in cc debt!!!! this has been a struggle and is has been something that we both have had to focus on in order for it to happen. We have had to quit going out to eat and have had to become extremely frugal in order to make this happen. All of this is right up my alley anyway but DH has is teh free spirit and he is the one that really had to buckle down and "grow up" and realize that we were so far in debt that we were drowning. I am very proud of him and the steps that he has taken. I think I will bake his favorite cookies as a reward.

Several years of being under employed and having a worthless money drain of a partner left me with some staggering debt, at least staggering for me.

I played catch up with my bills starting in 2004, finally got caught up and was making monthly payments again, but I still had the balances to worry about.

In mid 2006 I finally started to get more serious about getting out of debt.

January 2007 I started the Dave Ramsey method of getting out of debt.

18 months later, it's all gone.

As of Friday August 15th 2008, I am debt free.

I paid off a little over $29,000 in debt, plus also have managed to save $3,000 in an emergency fund.

I CUT my budget, stayed focused, stayed on budget, sold things, had yard sales and kept my eye on the prize.

Now I am switching my focus to build a healthy fully funded emergency fund worth 6 months of expenses, trade my truck in and get a car again and then save for land/ house down payment.

I tell my story to not only celebrate my own success in becoming debt free, but to also encourage others that are just starting the process or need some encouragement as they are in the middle of the process.

Hopefully soon we can post something here....

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All you need is faith, trust and a lil pixie dust!! But some good freebies never hurt anybody!

Proud Wife to Jeff and Momma to Matty 1-24-07 and Noah 04-06-08!!~

In Jan 2006 we owed about $20,000. Since that time we also had two more babies (read: co-pays, medical bills, etc).

In two days I will be paying the last of what we owe to anyone, anywhere. We are so excited! [As an aside - we rent, so no mortgage, but also no equity at this time.]

This has happened on about $55,000 yearly income and we currently have 9 children (expecting #10).

This couldn't come any too soon, because my dh's job is about to end and if he takes a job with the company in a different area, our income will drop by 1/3. This would be hard, but much more doable than if we still had the above debt (and possibly more).

Anyway, just wanted to share that it can be done and it's so worth it!

That is a GREAT story! Congrats to you!

Wow, it would be hard enough to live on $55,000 with nine children - you managed to pay off your debt at the same time. Fantastic! I hope to see you post some of your tips and advice for others moms going through what you did. You're an inspiration!

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