My husband Jamie and I had "the talk" again this past Sunday. I really hate "the talk." The talk is always about our finances.
Jamie's a pipeline welder. He goes to work. He works long hours at a very dangerous job. He works outside in all the elements. He's very skilled at what he does, and makes a great paycheck. He sees weekly what's deposited into our checking account and trusts me to handle the bills.
I'm a work at home mom. Aside from my It Works business, I'm responsible for the daily duties of our household, homeschooling our 5 children, and making sure the bills get paid.
This reoccurring talk that happened again on Sunday is because Jamie sees what comes in, and I see what goes out. It's difficult for Jamie to see that there's little to nothing to show for all his hard work. So, it's time to clean house. I know we can spend a lot of money on "fluff" (meaning there's nothing to show as a result of it). It's time to change the habits that we've had for the past 12 years.
It's very, and I do mean very, easy to spend over $100 for our family to dine in at a restaurant. And we've done it quite often. So much so that when I reviewed our spending habits over the past 3 weeks, I felt sick to my stomach. And all those unnecessary shopping trips with the kids...we didn't need anything I'd purchased. In fact, I went shopping just to get out of the house. All the miscellaneous debits on our bank statement. Couldn't we have done without a majority of them? Of course, you know the answer is YES.
Time for a new plan. If you've been following my blog, you know that I've made a goal of getting our debt paid off. I've knocked out 1 credit card so far, and well on our way to having another card eliminated. We're tithing faithfully and adding money to our savings account weekly. We're current on all our bills, and snowballing our debt. But that's not enough.
We met with a financial coach this morning for more help. He confirmed that we are on the right track. However, we still need to tweak our spending habits. So here's the plan we devised:
On payday, pay in this order:
1. Tithe 10%
2. Savings 10%
3. Bills due
4. Allowance for food, fuel, and miscellaneous expenses. This allowance is set aside in CASH. We can only spend the cash we have on hand for any of these expenses.
5. Pay additional predetermined amount toward our debt.
6. Any money left over at the end of the week will be applied to paying down our debt.
Jamie and I came home from the meeting and wrote out our weekly budget for both of us. Then we went to the bank and withdrew cash for our weekly allowances. And I needed to go to the grocery store afterward for a few things, so my allowance has already decreased (but it also made me more mindful to stick to my shopping list).
When we got home from the store, I checked the mailbox. Inside is what I'm calling my first Freedom Trophy. This is a notice from Capital One that they've completed my request to close my account (remember...I broke up with them after being a slave to their debt for 9 years). I have pinned it on my Dream Board in my office as a reminder that I can, and I will be debt free.
One of the best ways to stay motivated is to see results. I started this process of becoming debt free on January 24, 2014. Well, I ran our current numbers since we started. Since 01/24/14 to 02/19/14 we've paid down our debt an additional $8,143!!!
We'll meet with our financial coach again in one month. I can't wait to give him the update on what we've accomplished. THIS gets me excited. It's one thing to want to pay off debt; it's another thing to see it actually happening. And to add to this big pat on the back, in addition to paying down our debt that much, we also paid for plane tickets for when we travel to Florida in April for our next big It Works event. It Works says "Debt Free is the new Sexy," and I have to say, we're getting sexier by the week.
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