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"Try and enjoy the here and now. The future will take care of itself somehow. The grass is never greener over there." -- Howard Jones




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A couple years ago, we had dug ourselves in a deep debt hole. It got so bad, that we had to let our home and a rental house go back to the bank. We also had five credit cards that were out of control. It was or fault, we never denied that. We could have claimed bankruptcy, but we wanted to own up to our mess. We entered a debt negotiation program with our credit cards. Basically, we pay them every month, and they accumilate the money in an account. They then negotiate a settlement amount. We have been in the program for about a year and a half. They have paid off three cards, one card we had to set up payments for outside the program, and we only have one to go. I estimate that will be payed off in 4 to 5 months. We are so happy. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel. The card we will make payments to will take 6 years. yuck. But they are constantly offering us a settlement price. Then we have a heloc loan looming over us. We are not sure what will happen with that one. But we are staying positive.

In case anyone is interested in this debt negotiation program, I will provide the link below. I found the company on Dave Ramsey's website.

Century Negotiations Inc

We are getting so close to being debt free (excluding our mortgage). We used our tax refund this year to pay of our line of credit and haven't used it since! We just this month paid our credit card balance off in full. I'm so excited to get my bill next month and to see it say, "amount owed....$0) whoo hoo! I haven't had a zero balance on my credit card since I was 16 years old. Just to imagine the interest that I have paid makes me ill. I will never charge more than I can pay off at the end of the month again! Big lesson learned. Now all the money that I was paying on those two bills are going toward finishing off our car payments. They should be gone by spring. So next years tax money won't have to be earmarked toward paying paying off our bills. I can't even imagine what that will feel like. I'm really excited (you probably couldn't tell....lol).

I was in deep debt right out of high school. My parents
never budgeted money, so of course I never knew how.
(I'm 30 now, so this hasn't been very long ago)
My dh saved me!! He taught me how to budget,
save and be frugal. He helped me get completely
out of debt, student loans and all!!
We got completely debt free! Completely! House paid off,
car paid off, everything!!! It only took about 4 years!
It was really HARD work, but I/we stuck
with it and it has paid off! I think the key is to keep at it
even after your debt is gone!
One of the BIGGEST money savers to us is we brown bag
our lunches and eat dinner at home every night. That saves
so much money, it's hard to believe!! And it is quite simple!
It's easy to get frustrated, but it is so worth it to stick it out!!!!

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Jen

Before I got married to my husband I was in a lot of debt. I had been on my own since I was 19 and had purchased things on my credit cards just to get by. When I got married my husband and I decided that we would both claim zero dependents on our W-4's so that we could get a refund at the end of the year. When we get the refund each year we put it in an account that pays off something we may own on, like my new car payment (I had my old car for 10 years). This year we may put our tax refund toward helping to pay off our student loans. The best advice I can give though is to live below your means, (not within yours means because you will never have a savings account like that).

My husband and I did not have much money saved up before the birth of our son 2 years ago. So, therefore, when I went on maternity leave, we racked up a lot of debt on our credit cards. Soon after, we refinanced our mortgage and used some of the equity to pay off the credit cards. However, not long after we refinanced, our credit cards were maxed out again and we both bought new vehicles both with $500 monthly payments. We were in a bind again, but I kinda had a wake up call last July ('06). I made a budget on an Excel spreadsheet and my DH and I decided to get our act together. We stopped our impulse buying and eating out. We started picking up side jobs and we sold unused and unneeded items on ebay and yardsales. I took up using coupons and watching sale ads for bargains. We tracked all of our spending and put all of our efforts into paying off our debts. We had two of our credit cards paid off by the following December and we were able to pay for Christmas without using credit!! This year we have started a few savings accounts and we were able to remodel our bathroom and kitchen (on a tight budget & doing all the work ourselves, of course) with the money we have saved. I plan to have our two vehicles paid off in a year and a half by paying extra on them every month.

I give you all thumbs up. I finally got my hubby to see our situation. Before he just stub up or get mad at me for the $ we owe. But I got him go to a 2 night class at college with me How to get out of debt. They were 3 hr; long each. He listen to the man. He saying the samething I was but Hubby listen to him. He still can be offensive on the budget but it better than it was. Baby steps.

Tree

I'm going to tell a story here ... someday!

A victory, however small...I listened to Dave Ramsey's book! My next obstacle, get my husband to listen to it as well...not only listen to it...but get BRAINWASHED by it! He's a lazy guy, mostly bc he's super focused on his business, but, once that bridge is crossed, I too will share my small victories

You all give me hope that my husband and I can and will get out of some of the debt that we are in. We are really working toward paying off some of our debts.