Debt

Jared and I scoured the finances yesterday, and we learned some things I had not realized.

With moving to a new house last year, our expenses had gone up a lot. We are now paying our own water, and garbage bill. Our electricity bill is higher because we have a forced air heater and we have to heat the whole darn house when it is cold. Our insurance also went up because we were insuring a much more substantial house. The move changed our finances substantially.

Coincidentally, Jared started to feel bad right after we moved in, so he wasn't working as much as he had been. And so things just got a little out of control.

Now that we are on the other end of Jared feeling better, it is time to really start to focus on the debt that we have. We want to eliminate it. My ultimate goal is to own a house free and clear. I just want to own my own house without any additional strings attached so that no matter what, the land belonged to me.

First thing is first, though. We have to eliminate our other debt to be able to do that.

Jared and I sat down and pared away at the budget. We got rid of everything that was not absolutely necessary and we cut down on the amount of money that each of us gets to spend personally each month.

It turns out, that unless we start to turn it around big time, that we won't be out of debt for 8 years! Best case (not counting taxes) the earliest we could pay the whole thing off is 18 months, but truthfully, that is being incredibly optimistic.

We would really, really love to pay it off before we have another baby, but it turns out that we don't want to wait 8 years to have another baby.

We now are trying to get creative with what we have to try to produce some more income that we can use to pay off this stupid debt so we can move on with our lives.