Total Money Makeover

As some of you may know, we are fans of Dave Ramsey, and somewhere last fall we started doing the Total Money Makeover.  We got our emergency fund of $1000 stocked in just over a month (like 2 days over), and were ready to hit the ground running.  Jesse applied for a job in addition to his pastoral duties, and right after he got word that he was hired, he got a call to the churches in Iowa.

And so we had a couple months of upheaval as we prepared to move, moved, and got settled.  (And also, had Elizabeth, but we were actually fully prepared financially for her...)

So now we're here.  We have all of our accounts set up, paychecks are regularly deposited, and we're ready to get back on track.  Jesse wrote up a little sheet of paper yesterday that broke down how long it would take to pay everything back if nothing changed and we snowballed everything.

For our one credit card and several student loans, it will take...5 years.  Ugh.

Five years is a long time to live poor. To have a rice and beans mentality for food.  To do with what you have or do without.  To limit most of the extras.  To not take big vacations when you love to travel.

Big picture wise, it's half the time the loans require.  It's five years minus whatever additional headway we can make, anything extra that might come in.  Big picture wise, it sounds awesome and I'm super excited about it.

But in the short term, it's hard.  It's hard to not go out for coffee, or a meal (because with five of us eating, it adds up fast).  It's hard to have to budget months in advance to even attempt to meet up with family later this summer.  Worth it.  But hard.

I applied for a job this week.  If it works out, it should cut our repayment time at least by a third, if not more.  I won a $100 Dollar General gift card too, which I'll probably use for some of our toiletries, so that money can go into the loan payments.  Every little bit.  Every little bit.  I'm looking at getting back into Swagbucks to at least start paying for diapers again (we're almost through all of the diaper gifts we got for Elizabeth last fall, even with starting up with cloth again). Every little bit.  I'm just trying to keep that in my head, like the fish from Finding Nemo.  Just keep swimming...

Who has more get out of debt faster ideas for me?