Hear ye, hear ye, Money Saving Lords and Ladies! It’s Freedom Friday where I bi-weekly share our progress in becoming completely debt free. It’s also your turn to share your story of debt slaying. Whether you’ve paid off every cent you owe, are just getting started, or live somewhere in the in between, we want to hear from you! We’re better together, share your story and make us all stronger.
- Piece of Art Work at Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace Plaza
It’s made from cut up credit cards.
From time to time, I think you may have a misconception of who I am and what I am capable of which sets up an unrealistic expectation of what you can do. So today, I thought I’d bring some true confessions of just how frugal I am or am not (depending on who I’m comparing myself with at the moment). Enjoy.
- I bought a Chick-fil-a Large Iced Tea for myself on Tuesday night and fed the girls and myself Chick-fil-a on Wednesday night (yes, the King of Free remains restaurant free; he’s an oak.) without coupons.
- I haven’t had my hair cut since May of 2009. Partially because I’m cheap, partially because I’m growing it out to give it to Pantene Beautiful Lengths, and partially because I’m too lazy/don’t want to make arrangements to go. I also have two gift certificates for massages that I haven’t used yet for similar reasons.
- I don’t really enjoy grocery shopping unless I have the perfect storm – the right amount of organized coupons, the right balance of children to parent ratio, and the correct amount of time.
- We recently caved and bought a $100/year family membership for a gym at a local church. And it’s worth every. single. penny. for my health and sanity.
- That being said, I haven’t worked out today.
- I haven’t showered yet today.
- I haven’t done the dishes yet today.
- I haven’t done a load of laundry yet today.
- Do you see a pattern emerging?
- I have balanced the checkbook though. Yay!
- I’ve become much more introverted than I used to be. Perhaps it’s being surrounded by children pretty much every second of the day but in college I couldn’t stand being alone and now I crave it.
- We have spent a grand whopping total of $463.75 on dining out this year (roughly $50/month), this includes coffee, ice cream out, quick service, and sit down restaurants for the Princesses and me. I’m thinking this isn’t too bad but guessing we could do better.
- We use disposable diapers. Yes I’m wasting money and killing the environment. *sigh* I suck. At least I buy the cheapest possible ones 87.5% of the time.
- We have paid off $25,085.38 with our debt snowball this year as of this second. I wish it could be more. The overwhelming majority of it has been paid to Sallie Mae.
- We keep the “Paid In Full” statements from each debt we’ve paid off magneted to our refrigerator (along with last year’s Christmas card that Dave Ramsey sends to everyone who orders a product from him). Pinned to the top of it is a button the Queen Mum gave me which states “To Have More, Desire Less.”
- The first debt we paid off was a Kohl’s card that had around $100 on it. I tried to look up the exact amount and can no longer access our account online. We paid cash and the bill simply shows no balance due so it’s not even calculated into our total amount paid off (spoiler: which is coming in a couple of bullet points).
- The last debt we paid off before Sallie Mae (the final debt in our debt snowball that owns us) was Target VISA (read about slaying that Debt Dragon here). It had a $16,500 balance when we began.
- Since we started our debt slaying journey 30 months ago (that’s 2.5 yrs for you math majors), we have paid off drrrrruuuuuummmmmm rooollllllll please, $73,864.25.
- We still have a long way to go. I’m not giving you exact numbers right now because when it’s all over I want you to oooh and aaaah, but it’s going to take a minimum of 18 months by my calculations perhaps longer depending on the amount of income that rolls our direction.
So there you have my true confessions of the day. Are you shocked and awed? I am who I am. I’m far from perfect. It’s very easy for humans (and somedays I think more often than not women more easily fall into this trap) to play a comparison game. We’re not thin enough, smart enough, or rich enough in compared to the person sitting next to us (so that’s not totally true because sitting next to me are a bowl of Goldfish (generic) and I think I have them whooped in all three categories, maybe). I am not the Martha Stewart of the financial world (ok again so maybe that’s not a good comparison since she did time and whatnot but you get my point). I make rash purchases (hello Dollar Tree yesterday) and I don’t always stay on budget 100%. However, I do know that we haven’t used credit since February of 2008 to purchase anything. And I have much more peace in my life thanks to that decision.
Got a true confession to share? Leave it in the comments. You can even be anonymous. 🙂
