Why I’m Done Obsessing Over Debt

Last year we decided to get serious about our finances by building an emergency fund and tackling our debt. Ever since, I’ve been totally obsessed with getting out of debt. We set goals, revised those goals to be more aggressive and then revised them again to be even more aggressive. I set a budget based [...]

Is it OK to Splurge When You’re in Debt?

I’ve written a lot about our debt here and every month in my Net Worth and Goals updates. Paying off our debt is our top priority after establishing our Emergency Fund. The thought of being debt free makes me giddy and I’m pretty confident that if we follow our plan we will pay it off [...]

Book Review: Start Over, Finish Rich

Most likely you are familiar with David Bach, author of The Automatic Millionaire. I’d personally never read any of David’s books (or any other personal finance books for that matter) but I was familiar with him from The Today Show’s Money 911 Series where he is a regular contributor. That’s how I got my hands [...]

How I Knocked 5 ½ Years off my Loan and Saved $12,000

I own a boat. Or I should say the bank owns my boat as I’m 5 years into a 20 year loan. What? You didn’t know you could finance a boat over 20 years? Oh sure you can. Although 15 year loans are more common, 20 year loans are readily available for those of us [...]

My Goals: 2010

I can hardly believe we’re more than half way through January and I’m just getting around to documenting my goals for the year. They’ve been floating around my head for months but I’m just now writing them down. I’m one of those people that loves setting goals. They ground me. They keep me focused and [...]

My Story (part 7): Where are we now?

We’ve made paying down our debt and rebuilding our savings our top priority. In order to do that we really focus on keeping our expenses low. By moving a little further out, we were able to rent a house that met all of our needs (my husband had some non-negotiable garage requirements) for $1295/month versus [...]

My Story (part 6): The bank will help us…right?

We decided to apply for a Loan Modification knowing that it was unlikely we would get one…but we had to try. At this point banks were only dealing with people that were delinquent on their mortgage. We had been current up to this point but it was not an issue for us to stop making [...]

My Story (part 5): Financial strain = Marital discord

The financial turmoil was taking its toll on our marriage. My husband and I had always been able to speak openly about finances, but the stress affected every aspect of our lives. I was tense and we were arguing a lot. I didn’t know how much we could sustain. It was during one of these [...]

My Story (part 4): House poor

At the beginning of 2009 our income took a hit. We had been renting out two rooms in our house to supplement our income. We asked one renter to leave due to personal conflicts. The second renter purchased a house and also moved out. At the same time my personal income declined in January and [...]

My Story (part 3): First taste of failure

At the start of 2008 my income was ramping up but I was still no where near my previous salary…and my expenses were still in line with a six figure income. We were banking on the hope that my income would continue to increase. The real estate market had been hot for years but now [...]

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