The Master Plan

I haven't always been thrifty. Just 7 years ago, I owned more shoes than anyone's business. I'd go out and buy new... a lot. Sure, I frequented thrift stores, thanks to my mom's excellent training as I was growing up, but buying new gave me this "rush". It's like the movie Confessions of a Shopaholic. The manequins weren't talking to me, no, but I did buy things for the excitement of having something new. When that excitement wore off, I'd go get more. Then I got married, and soon after I got extremely sick with mono, and my health went downhill from there. Before we knew it, I was too sick to work and we began falling behind on our bill $700 a month. How did we pay them? With credit cards. We're still digging ourselves out of that hole, and we will be for quite a while.

The Master Plan:
We've implemented a list of things to help us to catch up with our debts. We haven't gone all "Dave Ramsey", but we're taking a lot of advice from him. (Learn more about Dave at: http://www.daveramsey.com/) Our goal is to cut back on unnecessary expenses, including fast food (our major weakness), groceries, and other discressionary items. At the same time, I believe it's just as important to feed your family healthfully, feeding them organic and natural foods that have been processed safely, and to use natural body products that have as few chemicals as possible. We are using the money we save to pay extra on our bills, starting with the smallest. As the smaller bills are paid off, we put that extra money towards larger bills, and that continues until everything is paid off ("the snowball effect").

I am always looking for new ways to cut back on our expenses, and this blog is my way of sharing what I find with my friends and family! I do hope that it helps someone.

~Sarah