The Great Debt Payoff

First off, this will be my last post because after paying off over $12,000, we anticipate The Great Debt Payoff will be complete in a few months.

There have been some crazy things happening around here, none of which I expected at all. I could go into all the details but I won't bore you. Suffice it to say, we have decided to sell our house. Ironically, the decision to sell is not a result of our Great Debt Payoff (although it certainly factored in).

My husband is a pastor and the vision for our church is to reach our city. We currently live in the suburbs. Until now, this has not been an issue for us and furthermore, we are 100% certain God led us to this very house. We definitely believe we were supposed to live here. But alas, it seems our season here is ending.

Recently we began to wrestle with the idea that perhaps our personal lives should intersect more directly with our church life, namely, in the location of our home. It is for that reason that we feel God is leading us out of the suburbs and into the city.

The ramifications of this move are huge, the costs (not financial so much, but more emotional etc.) will be significant and the loss of beloved neighbors and suburban amenities, painful. The decision to move has come with GREAT groaning in our souls. Nevertheless, we are as certain as we can be that God is leading us in this direction. Therefore, we will follow.

I never expected to be in this position. But if I've learned anything in my 31 years, it's that God is often full of surprises. I have also learned that He is trustworthy.

I do believe God has a sense of humor and one way He's displaying it in this situation is by making The Great Debt Payoff, well, paid off. After selling our home, we'll pay off the remaining amount.

The next few months will be a whirlwind of activity I assume, so, despite my grand intentions for this site, it ends here, my friends. May God bless you in all your financial endeavors and may all the glory be His.

(P.S. You can still catch me blogging over at Not Your Typical Pastor's Wife.)

If you're interested in making passive income on the web, check out supermom's ideas at Getting Out of Debt: Five Simple Ways of Creating Passive Income.

Debt payoff has been slow going. The busyness of life seems to have taken control (gotta fight that) and we've decided to earmark some money to make some much-needed repairs on the house...money that would've otherwise gone toward the debt. I'm encouraged that we've already paid off more than $8000, but for some reason, I'm having trouble seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I think it's because as we work on the house, I realize how much MORE work needs to be done on the house—work that costs lots of money (like painting the thing, getting a new driveway, etc.) and I find it a tad bit overwhelming. I don't want to face it. Life is so much nicer when you live in denial.

Well, in case you haven't heard, there are lots of people making lots of money selling on eBay. In some cases, lots and lots of money. Like millions.

It's hard to imagine there are people in the world just like you and me who started selling the old stuff they found around their house and now they're rakin' in the big bucks. But it really happens and it just plain gives me hope. Not that I'll make millions on eBay, for this is not my life's pursuit, however, I like the fact that I could make millions if I wanted to.

And you my friend, can accomplish this great task as well. If you think you might like to give it a whirl, here are some tips to get you started on the road to those eBay millions.

It may not be the most original recipe, but the description of Ghetto Pizza at Cheap Eats is certainly the most well-documented I've seen. And how can you go wrong with a meal/snack which costs only $.32?

I already talked about making money online via a catablog which is basically building a blog around a specific product you are selling.

Well, if you don't have a product to sell (like yours truly), you can still make money via your blog. Yes, your lovely monologue can potentially bring in the big bucks.

There are a lot of ways to do this. For example, you'll notice the Google AdSense ads on the top and the right side of this blog. Those are there to make money. It's easy to set up, free to you and you can make money without even trying.

But I am not the Google AdSense queen by any stretch of the imagination, nor have I discovered and implemented all the other secrets to making mucho dinero on my blog. If that were the case, then we wouldn't be having this discussion—I would have made so much money by now that our debt would've been wiped out and The Great Debt Payoff would be so unnecessary.

There's a ton of stuff I could do with this blog to make it more profitable. And accomplishing that is obviously on my list of to-dos, however this to-do has gotten pushed down to the bottom of the list by my other to-dos, such as, "make sure kids don't kill each other," "remember to clean the house so hidden crumbs don't attract rodents and other small beasts" and "don't forget to make dinner on a somewhat regular basis so as not to cause undue harm to husband, children or self."

When I do get around to making this blog more profitable, there is only one place I need to go: ProBlogger. Darren Rowse is the King of Blogging for Profit and his site is so loaded with great info, how-tos and examples, that a visit to his site should be required by every blogger alive. So, get moving. Go see how you too can make a whole lotta money on your blog. And when you do start rolling in the dough, remember you heard it here first.

So, I've been selling my textbooks on Amazon again and business has been smooth and steady. I so wish I had lots and lots of textbooks lying around—this is easy money. Definitely a good way to bring in a little extra.

By the way, I have listed some other books (non-textbooks), but they don't do as well.

Just thought Unusual Businesses Ideas That Work might give you some ideas...