Budget Update

Well have been hitting the OT so my goal of sending $1000 extra to debt was accomplished this month. Only the second time this year we have hit that goal. We had went on vacation this last week with a budget of $700. i was hoping to come under a little but we went $50 over. Other then that not doing to bad i guess we will see what the next 2 weeks bring and i think we might actually make it under budget this month.

Try something different

Well sense we have started this budget we seem to always go over budget on the Food. We have been using the imaginary envelope on a spreadsheet so this month we are going to try an actual cash envelope to see if this will help us. If this works for us i might go ahead and do it with others like entertainment and toiletries.

The Cycle must be brocken:

I believe that Americans today take being in debt too lightly. We go out and get credit cards and buy homes that are too big for our income and new cars that is also over our income. Why?? So we can look better then the neighbor??
So we can be Happy?? We rack up the debt and then are ashamed to let anyone know actually how far we are in debt. Everyone i know will never tell anyone how much debt thay have even our parents because it is embarrassing how big the number has become.My self i am tired of hi dding the truth. when i tell someone how much debt i have it motivates me to get rid of that debt because of the shame it brings me. i use to think that charging to a zero interest credit card was OK but it was still debt it was still money i did not have and still had to pay the BILL every month. The crazy thing is that when i tell people that i am striving to be debt free in 5 years they all smirk and tell me it is impossible and that debt is a necessity. Well thau are wrong!!!
Well i felt i just need to get that out. Thanks

Putting it out there for all to See!

I added two links that show our September budget and also our Daily Report.
both of these are from a portion of my Expense report i made on Excel

I will try and keep the Report up to date as much as possible.

A little back round

I come from a lower class family and my wife comes from a middle class family. We both have one thing in common, neither of are parents taught anything good about finance just how to go get into debt. We both maxed out Student loans while in college(Myself a 2 year degree after dropping out of 1 year of a 4 year school and my wife received a Master Degree). I has starting to get fed up with the debt before my wife and tried to start a budget but Jenn was not on board yet. Then our church had a Dave Ramsey Seminar Financial Peace University. This Class started to get my wife on board. We BOTH see now that once debt free the money that will be available to us will be worth the sacrifice. Currently over half of our Money goes toward Bills pertaining to Debt not including Normal every month bills like Utilities and Insurance.

The reason i decided to Start a Blog on our journey is that maybe we can help someone not make the mistakes we have and be an inspiration to others

The beggening of the Long Trip

This year my wife and I are finally fed up with giving over half are money to creditors. We have set a goal to become debt free any way possible as soon as possible. We are not crdit card debt people but we just have not been putting any extra to debt to get rid of it any sooner.
Profile of the Debt:

Home: 110,000
Car: 14,000
Discover: 4,000 @ Zero interest
Student Loans: 120,000 (all loans added up)(The back Breaker)
Total: 248,000

(This year we have managed to pay off about 9,000 (So total debt was 257,000 at the begining of the year) of debt accrued with buying our first home all the debt was on Zero interst card. A game i dont want to play with ever again.)

We have started a Zero Based Budget (idea from Dave Ramsey) After 5 months of working on it we have the budget in decent order but still working on changing are personal habits to stick to the budget every month(The Hard Part). We both make OK money but payed for its seen above. We make a combined income of around 80,000. I work as much overtime as possible and my wife has now picked up a part time Night teaching job. I am always looking for more ways to make money and try and put in twards debt. We do have twin 2 yr old girls so 1200 in day care is gone right off the top.

Goal:
Be debt free excluding the home in 3 years:
Total debt freedom in 5 Years:
Then start acquiering wealth: