Do you dream, worry, or even fantasize about it? I know I surely did....! We had a lot of debt, some of it business related and I was always thinking ok, now if we can just do so and so then we'll be able to get out of debt. The day just never seemed to come, no matter how hard we wished for it. FINALLY, one day we decided to stop wishing and do something, actually DO something about it. We started the snowball method that has worked wonders for us. How have you taken control of your debt monster?

We are snowballing our debt now. For a long time, I knew it was the best thing to do, but I still kept spending the money that could be used for a snowball payment. Finally, I made myself start sending in a snowball payment. We've only been at it for a few months, but just knowing that the money is being put towards getting us out of debt is a relief itself.

Lisa, we have almost killed our debt-monster. We became CC debt-free in 12/01, paid off one car note last fall (2 years early) and will pay off our other car note in the next couple of months (also 2 years early). We refinanced our home loan last summer for 15 years and so far have been able to make one additional principal payment each month. We used a modified snowball approach seeing as we only had one CC. Our eye-opener was tracking our spending, I have been doing this for @ 4 years now and the first couple I didn't really pay attention to the spending. I was using Quicken as my normal check register not thinking it through as far as analyzing our habits. Once I did, there was no stopping me, DH wasn't on board from the beginning but I started making changes and once the results were so obvious he climbed on board with me. :)

I guess we've had our debt under control for about 10 years, and are finally totally debt free now. Tracking spending is key, I agree Pamy.

That's so awesome!
I'm currently in student loan hell. It'll be quite awhile before that debt is gone. :( We're doing pretty well other than that though.

I definitely dream of the day the student loans are gone.

We have been snowballing our debt payments for the last year. This month alone, with our fed refund and DH's pay increase, we were able to pay off $4384.32 this month alone. Granted, some of that is knocked off intrest, but it was a joyful shock to see that number when I added up the new totals.

We refinanced our house and got an equity loan that payed off all our CC's and car loans. Granted, the debts havn't gone away, but we have an extra $1000.00 a month in our pockets to apply towards the principle balance, rather than having all that money go towards interest to the CC companies. I figure we can get that loan paid off by this time next year. I have cancelled all cards but one that has a low limit and for once our savings account is growing and I truly feel our finances are in order. It's like a giant weight off our shouldars.

Laura

It is a great weight off when you get those loans paid. Keep up the great work girls! It's sooooooo worth it!