Hello from a newbie

**GirlBoyGirl** · 05-10-2011, 02:00 PM

Hello everyone! I just stumbled across this board and I am greatly enjoying!! DH and I have 3 kids (under 20 months!) and enjoy living frugally. We aren't the MOST frugal people but we try our hardest. We don't have fancy cell phones or expensive cable or tons of new clothes and shoes. We like to watch our pennies

We have a $13k car loan, $25k student loans plus $10k parent plus loan that I have to pay my parents back for, $1,000 charged on the CC since last statement on various things that were needed plus a plane ticket to go see my sister's new baby and the $170k mortgage. All in all, not bad.

I am going to start using cash only when I am out and about because I tend to go overboard with the debit card! In fact, I accidentally threw the debit card away and I will NOT be replacing it!

We are doing an informal DR plan. I say informal because DH doesn't really like the DR plan because he says it is all common sense, which mostly we did anyway. But I like to "follow" something to make me feel like I am going down a check list! So this is where we are now:

Here are our steps so far

Pre-Step 1: Get current on your debts and do a budget - CHECK
0.1 No new borrowing. - CHECK
0.2 Talk with spouse and get him/her on the same page as you concerning finances. CHECK- we had a long talk, luckily neither of us are spenders
0.3 Do a written budget - CHECK- just did that but need to redo it because my hours were cut
0.4 Temporarily stop all retirement contributions - CHECK (we weren't doing this anyway! ugh)
0.5 Get current on all the basics (Shelter, Food, Utilities, Basic clothing) - CHECK
0.6 Amputate "toys" (bikes, boats, ATV's etc) to help snowball - CHECK (we are working on this, we don't have many toys but DH has a vintage car that he is trying to sell, yay!)
0.7 Cut lifestyle (Cut cable, cell, extras, eating out) - CHECK (we already only had prepay cell phones that we don't use much, $20 vonage home phone, $10 cable tv for just the network channels, and $30 internet which we need for DH's side business)
0.8 Get current on ALL bills

BS1 $1,000 to start an Emergency Fund - CHECK - just saved up enough to put $1,000 in savings for an EF!
1.1 Chop up/freeze CC's (You have an EF now) - We do still use the CC for gas because I can't leave the kids in the car to go pay in cash
1.2 Get Health insurance NOW if in the US - CHECK
1.3 Get Life insurance NOW if you have considerable debt/your family couldn't make it financially if you died. - CHECK but I want to increase it.
1.4 Amputate cars that you can't pay off within 24 months - Working on this now!!

So that is how far we are now, looking forward to reading along, thanks!! Sorry that was so long!!