Time for a little cash accountability in life.

**The only man who sticks closer to you in adversity than a friend is a creditor. ~Author Unknown
**Creditors have better memories than debtors. ~Benjamin Franklin
**Debt is the worst poverty. ~Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia, 1732
**Today, there are three kinds of people: the have's, the have-not's, and the have-not-paid-for-what-they-have's. ~Earl Wilson
**The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender. ~ Proverbs 22:7

January 2007: financial future forecast -- bleak. LOADS of student loan debt, no budgeting for day to day stuff, bank accounts only padded on payday.

October 2007: financial future forecast -- on the up and up!! Still loads of student loan debt but now an emergency fund in place, budgeting for EVERY single dollar spent per month, AND the beginnings of a debt snowball.

How did this happen? What propelled us to this place?
The proverbs verse did it for me. Not sure what the turning point for Greg was but it happened all about the same time somewhere late last year. A little book called My Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey helped us to see that we were falling into a pattern that would lead us not to a better place but a life held hostage by paycheck to paycheck living.

We decided to try out some of his ideas which were easy enough to follow and see where it lead us. Thank GOD we decided to give it a whirl. We are happier, more content, and feeling in control of spending and designing our future around being debt free. Granted, it is a long haul. We don't even own a home yet and we are saddled heavily with student loans. Yuck. We are making major sacrifices by reducing things we have always loved to do (travel) and things we thought we were going to do this year (buying our 1st home) but as DR loves to say, we are living like no one else so that one day we can live like no one else.

In the next 12 months we hope to have eliminated all but our student loan debts. Those loans will take at least a couple years of sacrifice. We hope that by the time this is all over we will finance our first home with at least a 20-25% cash down payment. Some things may change as the course continues. We hope to be blessed with another baby, whether it be through adoption or just by gettin' lucky! With continued hard work we should be able to contribute more thanks to a bigger "shovel" for our "hole".

I decided to put it all out there so that there is an accountability factor for us. In our October 2008 post I hope to say that we did it, we made it past the 1st part of the long term goal. Check back for updates, I promise we will keep you posted. :o)