On my mind....

Disclaimer: This post is really long and probably boring!

This is our year. For the past two weeks I have been reading Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. I have heard hin on the radio before and my parents have read his book and swear by it. One thing that is great about him is the fact that he is religious and he always says to pay 10% to your church (tithing), so it fits so well with what I already believe. I have been wanting to read it for a while now and this year my parents gave it to me for my birthday. They were really worried that I would think that it was a lame gift, but it really has been the best gift so far! David and I have made some DUMB choices when it comes to purchases. Sometimes we just don't want to wait for things, so we use credit to pay for them. I really hate that I am one of those poeple! We always regret it later. I really hate to say that we have credit card debt, so I just pay my payments and ignore it. Well, this month in the Ensign the Visiting Teaching message is all about getting out of debt. David and I have decided that enough is enough and we are committed to paying it all off this year. That is my goal, to be debt free! One of the other motivators is that we can't move out of our condo until all of it is paid off. We want to be able to afford a bigger house, but the thing holding us back is all the stupid payments we have toward debt! That, and the fact that the market stinks right now, so we couldn't get what we wanted out of this place anyway. Our three bedroom two bath home is getting smaller everyday and with baby number 4 on the way, it is a wonder how we fit all of us in this little place.
We just filed our taxes last night and we should be getting enough money back to make a huge dent in our debt and get our $1000 emergency fund in place. We have some money saved, but sadly not enough to cover that. The other thing we have to look forward to is the insurance money we will get back after A.J. is born. We signed up for two poilcies (Aflac and Conseco) a couple years ago that will pay us $5400 when we have the baby. It paid all our medical bills and more when we had Avery and that is one of the reasons her and the next baby will be so close. Most of these insurance companies have discontinued these types of policies because they don't make any money on them (DUH!). But since we still have it, they will have to pay us. So, when we get that money back, we will be able to pay more things off.
It is so amazing to me that there is an end in sight. I slept so well last night knowing that we are finally going to get out from under this boulder. I can't explain how excited I am to not have to worry about debt anymore. This is all really hard for me to admit, I almost didn't post this because I hate to hang my dirty laundry out to dry! There isn't anyone in the world who wants their faults out there for the world to see! But I feel like if I do this, it is one more thing to keep me motivated. Wish us luck! This is going to be a really tough year!