I just redid my debt planner and if I stay on track all my credit cards will be paid off by Jan 1, 2007! I could start the year with no credit card debt...and a New Year's Resolution not to acquire anymore!

Making the right decision is hard to do, but once you have made it, you feel very proud of yourself...at least I do anyway.
We are going to wait on the garage till next early summer. We are going to pay the credit cards off first!
Not much saving going this weekend as we will be doing some traveling so I expect $125.00 in gas and about $60.00 in misc expenses over the weekend. I don't want to spend this money but it was the compromise in getting hubby to agree to wait on the garage. Next Friday begins our 2 week no spend challenge. I must work on planning out the menu and preparing the shopping lists as this will be tricky, but I believe financially worthwhile!
According to my money file, in the last two weeks we have spent $302.50 on unbudgeted, unplanned excursions and items. Imagine if we had saved it...

I'm one of those folks who needs to stay out of the store in order to not spend the money.
I was thinking of doing a two week no spend challenge for myself. I have done one week no spending with ease, but two weeks would be a challenge. The trick would be to plan and estimate needs carefully and buy the necessities once every two weeks. Also fill the gas tanks on the same day and of course, pay the bills. It would take a lot of planning and some will power not to run out and buy the first thing that breaks or runs out...but I think it would save me a lot of extra money. I think I am going to review my money file and see just how much is being spent in casual unplanned excursions and expenses.

Hi-
I'm Sarah, 24 yo SAHM to 3 great kids. My hubby Bill works very hard to support us and I solely control our finances. Prior to our marriage my husband had very poor credit and no financial skills. We worked hard and cleaned it all up but I was young and was not prepared for the onslaught of buy it nows and credit cards we could get with good credit. I (pretty exclusively just me)racked them up with lots of nice new things. When I became pregnant with our 3rd child we refinanced and paid everything off. I became a stay at home mom. Stupidly it's been 8 months and yup...WE racked some of them back up. Here's the current picture:
Credit Cards Paid and Closed
Citibank
Paypal
Dell FS

Credit Cards Owing On
Capital One 929.26 @19.74%
Capital One 935.11 @19.00%
Discover 3720.00 @0.00% (till 11/07)
Menards HSBC 206.01 @0.00% (till 01/07)
Providian 1497.52 @24.00%

Deferred good debt
Student Loans
Current balance $11,000

Other debts in payment plans
Medical Bills $1400

We owe $38,000 on our home which is currently valued at $60,000 so we have some equity in it as well as $10,000 in some property we own. We are remodeling our house currently so I find we have to walk a fine line between putting money into the house and paying down the credit cards. The balance on the discover card is mutual debt we incurred while remodeling the house. The balance no the Providian is half mututal debt for a family vacation and half college tutition that will be reimbursed from financial aid. The balance on the Capital One cards is all MY DEBT. I don't know how they got they high again. I just started charging here and there and mostly on things like groceries, clothes...and hubby has no idea how high the balances really are. He has never really asked point blank and I have never brought the issue up. I am bothered by these balances because it's $1800 of his money that I need to use to pay them off and I can't account for what I borrowed money for in the first place.
So here is my situation. It's not dismal by any means and we do have some disposable income every month that I can apply to pay off these debts...but we are also trying to finish our real estate investment...this house. We do not plan on selling or moving for another 3 years yet but there are some things that demand attention right now. Our garage is falling down and we have two massive pine trees that are leaning that need to be removed as long as the garage isn't blocking them in.
Building the new garage (it is necessary to have one for all of hubby's tools) will cost all of our savings and probably max the Menards Card out at $2,500 @ 0% as well. After that, we need a new furnace with central air, that will run about $3,500 which we can pay for out of pocket once saved up. Realistically to get these things done we wouldn't even look at starting to pay off the credit cards until February of 2007. At that point our credit card debt would have risen to $9581.89! Ok that's my thought for today. Thanks for letting me let it all out of the dark closet. I hope to have a savings (or debt reduction or remodeling fund) blog. I love to blog and I think if I could record each little victory it might help motivate me to see progress in writing.