What I am Going to Do

Ok ... so we have already discussed why financial and budgeting blogs drive me crazy and the things my family is not going to do in order to get control of our finances.

Today, I wanted to let you know somethings that I think we are going to do in order to get control of our finances and get our butts out of debt!

1) Cash
Here is my deal with cash ... what if I lose it! Even though I have a fear of losing a wad of cash, I am going to make all my grocery & gas purchases with cash. By using cash at the grocery store I will be more conscious of how much money we are spending. Each week I can spend $150 for our family of 6. This amount includes groceries, diapers, shampoo, conditioner, toilet paper, paper towels, and body wash. I am going to use Jordan Page's budgeting idea. You can watch her video here. Even though she uses a credit card instead of cash I am going to set it up the same way she does.

2) Pro-Rata Debt System
My husband and I took a financial class prior to get married. It was 12 weeks long and we learned a lot BUT we were more broke then than we are now. I was in college and he was working. We also didn't have the littles. The financial class we took was called Financial Peace by Dave Ramsey. This course was amazing!! We learned a ton but we haven't been using what we have learned. (Boo). The Pro-Rata Debt system is where you add up all of your debt and you create a new payment based on what you can pay. (NOTE: The new amount may actually be less than your minimum payment. Dave Ramsey suggests mailing your payment along with you Pro-Rate Debt list and your budget when you cannot pay the minimum balance.) Then you look at each debt individually. You calculate each debt as a percentage.

Example:

Total Debt: $7500 in credit cards and other misc. debt
Credit Card #1: $1926.52 total amount due

1926.52/7500 =  26% of debt

Then: You find out what amount of money you have left over after paying all the other bills. (Rent/mortgage, gas, electric, water, cell phone, cable, car payment ...)

We have $200 left over

To calculate your new payment take your percentage of debt and multiply it by your disposable income.

26% * $200 = $52 new payment

We are going to do this each month when the bill comes and create a new Pro-Rata Debt list.

3) We are going to contact our cell phone, cable, and internet providers.
Hopefully these companies will work with us in order to lower our bills. I am not use why our bills our so high but we need to get these under control.
Our Cell Phone is:  $250 for 2 phones and a tablet
Our Cable is: $90
Our Internet is : $57 unless we go over our data then it could be more like $90
We may have to cancel cable. I am actually kind of excited about this one. I am the one that watches the most tv. The Bigs mostly play video games in their room and don't watch much tv at all. My husband likes to watch motocross racing and sometimes a sport. But mostly I am the one who watches tv the most. At this point in our financial journey, saving $90 a month would help us.

4) We are going to have budget meetings.
Ok. This is probably my least favorite. Money is so personal even when you are in a marriage. My husband and I like to spend money on different things. I am the saver and he is the spender. He thinks our credit cards should be paid before our rent while I think the exact opposite. I pay all the bills and make all the financial decisions. He just spends money and then I go crazy. So yeah ... budget meeting...Awesome.

5) Figure out a way to make an extra income
We have a local facebook group that we can sell household items, clothes, baby items, ... really anything. And we have a ton of stuff we don't use. So I am going to (painstakingly) go through things and sell them online. Also, I may have to pick up another shift at work. Or my husband can get a part time job. Lastly, I am a Young Living Essential Oil distributor. I have never tried to really sell these oils as a way to make an income. I just joined a business group that is going to help me get an income from selling oils.

So that is what we ARE going to do. I am sure we will try other things. Since November is about to start I will give you a recap of our budget meeting and our budget within the next week or two. What would you like to see us try? Do you have any suggestions? What are you willing to do in order to get out of debt and gain some financial freedom?

I am going to try and create a Pro Rata debt list form that is cuter than what I have. When I do I will link it to this page!!