AVOIDING DEBT


With the Christmas season approaching rapidly (it will be here before you know it) I feel compelled to write about avoiding debt. We just hit 270 days without using a credit card of any kind. We are beginning to feel confident that we can live without them. Luckily, we have not had a large visit from Murphy yet to deplete our emergency fund, which we haven't touched since August 28th. These are major milestones for our family. I have been in debt since I was 19 years old and I want to be debt free by age 40 and never have debt again. Our marriage has consisted of over ten debt filled years and I am sick of it (the debt, not the marriage.)


I am going to set some debt freedom goals and I will post those goals here, if for nothing more than accountability or inspiration to whoever may read this blog. Ordinary people can become debt free with some focused intensity.


This Christmas is shaping up to be the first Christmas of our married life where our debt will not increase as a result of gift overbuying. We are really doing a good job exercising discipline with our kids and our friends kids. Everybody just has too much stuff. I am really starting to feel weird
which is good because normal in America is broke and in debt. Weird is debt free with financial peace.


If we can make it through the Christmas season with no additional debt and pay cash for every gift, we will be ahead of the game for the first time in a decade.

Our 2007 financial goals are:

1. Pay off an additional $16,000 in debt during the year. (We are at $15,000 + year to date right now.)
2. Save an additional $2,500 towards emergency fund. (Right now it is $1,000.)
3. Take a vacation in the summer that we can afford and pay cash for it.

Using Dave Ramsey's philosophy, our family has seen a $17,500 turnaround in our financial situation (Savings + Debt Payoff combined) in 2006 and we hope to continue the discipline into 2007. We are living like no one else so that later we can live like no one else.

Here's hoping your Christmas season is a credit card free one and that Financial Peace is right around the corner, as we feel it is for us.