In January of this year, a couple months after I found out that I would be a father, my wife and I decided that we must do something about our debt. Our debt as of January 1, 2009 (not including student loans), was as follows:
1. CitiCards (Amex)- $7,735.65
2. BofA CC- $2,999.29
3. BofA LC- $35,660.80
4. CitiCards (Student Visa)- $2,362 (Settled in January for 35% of balance owed!)
5. USAA- $12,075
6. WAMU- $894.53
7. Capitol One- $1,663.79 (Settled in August for 40% of balance owed!)
8. Chase Cards- $1,374.46 (Settled in March for 50% of balance owed!)
9. Credit Union- $1,586.30
10. Victoria's Secret- $242.45
11. Car 1- $8,681.98
12. Car 2- $14,777.05
13. Harley- $10,516.02
Total Debt- $100,569.32
Our plan is simple:
Step 1: Do whatever we can to eliminate all of this debt within two years!
Step 2: Eliminate our Student loan debt-- Over 270k, in the following 5 years.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Good Starting Place
As a starting place, I would recommend checking out www.daveramsey.com. I am a big fan of Dave Ramsey and recommend that you check out his website for useful tips in living a debt free life. His radio shows are also available and provide very good tips.
Welcome!
Welcome to the Debt Free Father blog!
This blog will follow my family's efforts to free itself from the prison of debt. My wife and I have recently had a beautiful baby boy and we have realized that we can no longer continue to live with the poor choices that we have made over the past few years. I will outline the extent of our debt in a future blog (once I have the hours necessary to gather all of the information...because the debt is quite extensive). An estimation of our debt is as follows:
Credit Cards: $80,000
Student Loans: $270,000
Monthly debt payment: $2,500
Our goal is free ourselves in two years from the massive amounts of credit card and student loan debt that prohibits us from living freely. Through this blog, we will chronicle our efforts, successes and failures in paying off or settling the debt that we have incurred.
We believe that while we did incur this debt, it is our responsibility to take proactive measures to get out of the debt. We want to show others in the internet world that you can break free of debt by settling that debt for less than 50% of its current amounts. While I do not morally believe that everyone should be able to shirk their debt responsibilities, I also believe that our culture and the greedy banks have taken advantage of good people in order to make ridiculous profits and spend themselves into oblivion, only to end up with a government bailout. These same banks call any person that does not pay their debt a "deadbeat" and, most interestingly, refer to those who pay their debts on time as, likewise, "deadbeats." The banks make their money by drowning their customers in debt and collecting interest and ridiculous and unfair fees. If they can keep you in this prison for your whole life, then they have been successful in extracting not only every penny out of you, but in extracting your life from you.
Another issue that I will attempt to address in this blog is the issue of credit scores and how this concept runs and ruins our lives. If we can all live a cash only life, I think that we will all be much better off and, better yet, we will have the greedy banks out of lives.
I encourage all who read this blog to contribute any personal stories, anecdotes and advice as to how to best rid yourself of debt and begin to live a free life, the life that all Americans should endeavor to enjoy.
Talk to you later!
This blog will follow my family's efforts to free itself from the prison of debt. My wife and I have recently had a beautiful baby boy and we have realized that we can no longer continue to live with the poor choices that we have made over the past few years. I will outline the extent of our debt in a future blog (once I have the hours necessary to gather all of the information...because the debt is quite extensive). An estimation of our debt is as follows:
Credit Cards: $80,000
Student Loans: $270,000
Monthly debt payment: $2,500
Our goal is free ourselves in two years from the massive amounts of credit card and student loan debt that prohibits us from living freely. Through this blog, we will chronicle our efforts, successes and failures in paying off or settling the debt that we have incurred.
We believe that while we did incur this debt, it is our responsibility to take proactive measures to get out of the debt. We want to show others in the internet world that you can break free of debt by settling that debt for less than 50% of its current amounts. While I do not morally believe that everyone should be able to shirk their debt responsibilities, I also believe that our culture and the greedy banks have taken advantage of good people in order to make ridiculous profits and spend themselves into oblivion, only to end up with a government bailout. These same banks call any person that does not pay their debt a "deadbeat" and, most interestingly, refer to those who pay their debts on time as, likewise, "deadbeats." The banks make their money by drowning their customers in debt and collecting interest and ridiculous and unfair fees. If they can keep you in this prison for your whole life, then they have been successful in extracting not only every penny out of you, but in extracting your life from you.
Another issue that I will attempt to address in this blog is the issue of credit scores and how this concept runs and ruins our lives. If we can all live a cash only life, I think that we will all be much better off and, better yet, we will have the greedy banks out of lives.
I encourage all who read this blog to contribute any personal stories, anecdotes and advice as to how to best rid yourself of debt and begin to live a free life, the life that all Americans should endeavor to enjoy.
Talk to you later!
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