The Great Debt Payoff

So I'm listening to my husband talking on the phone to Discover. He's canceling our card. Of course they ask him why we want to close the account. This is his response:

"Well, first of all, we don't like having to pay an annual fee. Second, we want to get rid of all our credit cards. And, have you ever heard of Dave Ramsey?"

Apparently the first customer service rep he talked to replied, "Oh, I love Dave Ramsey. I know exactly what you're talking about."

Hilarious.

By the way, perhaps you've noticed the (unexciting) changes in the look of the blog. I'm doing a little experimenting but mostly I just decided I wanted something different...as is my standard operating procedure. I'll continue to tweak as time goes by.

If you're wondering where I'm tracking our progress, the numbers are now in the right column so check 'em out there.

Well, we've decided to keep the house (as of today at least). Our house payment is only 30% of our take home pay (as opposed to Dave Ramsey's suggested 25%), but we've decided to find other areas of the budget to cut back on instead. You know what they say about real estate: location, location, location. Our home is in a great spot and I'm pretty certain we'd regret it if we sold. So, we're stayin' put.

The Pilot is another story though. We still haven't decided on that one.

Then again, what do you expect from two people who can't decide on a name for their child who's due to be born in the next week or two.

I'm a mom of two. I take care of a third. I'm also 8 months pregnant. Diapers are a way of life.

Therefore I was stoked to find a $2 off coupon for Luvs at Target. (If the link doesn't work, click here for the page at dealcatcher.com where the coupon is listed).

The deal is sweeter since Luvs happen to be on sale at our local Target through tomorrow. (FYI...you can check your weekly Target ad online by going here.)

Well, now the stakes have been raised.

Dave has a rule of thumb about a house. He says your total monthly house payment (and I'm pretty sure he includes taxes and insurance in this figure) should not be more than 25% of your monthly take-home pay. After 20 years of counseling people, he's determined that it's very hard to get ahead financially if you're spending more than 25% of your take-home pay on your house.

Well, needless to say, now we're wondering if we should sell our house.

I'M FEELING A LITTLE UNCOMFORTABLE OVER HERE.

As I mentioned in this post, I have now become a Dave Ramsey fanatic. I listen to his radio show religiously and I especially love Fridays because there are all kinds of people who call in, screaming they are debt free. It's very inspiring.

One thing he talks about a lot is selling stuff. Consequently, we are now seriously considering selling one of our cars. We have no car payments, so it's not like we would be getting rid of payments. But we have a Honda Pilot (which we love) but I just can't seem to look at it without seeing more green dollar bills with which we could throw at our debt. Oh, it sounds so good.

So, I consulted Kelley Blue Book and I figure we can get $18,000 to $19,000 for the thing. IT. IS. SO. TEMPTING. We have to consider the ramifications of such a sale, of course, the major one being parting with our one reliable vehicle. The second one is the fact that our family is about to grow by one human being in about 1 month, and therefore, the question is: Is this really a good time to downsize?

I mentioned the idea to some good friends who ooze with wisdom...and they think we're absolutely nuts for even considering the idea. Then again, I often do things that make people think I'm weird. Or maybe I'm just weird. It's probably the latter.

I'll keep you posted.

I know this is an old story, but if we're talking about ways to make money online, here's an idea.

This woman was $20,000 in the hole (too much shopping at Bloomingdales she said) and thought that if she could find 20,000 people to each give her $1 or 10,000 people to give her $2, etc., she could beat the debt pretty quickly. I suppose she felt so overwhelmed, she figured she didn't have anything to lose. Apparently it paid off—in about 20 weeks. Her debt was totally gone by then after selling quite a bit of stuff on eBay, contributing from her own income as well as receiving over $13,000 from "nice people."

While her original debt is gone, she's still profiting from the experience, like from her book.

And it causes me to ask myself that age-old question: Now, why didn't I think of this?