Where I'm at...

Okay, so I've already had one huge success today. I called one of the companies I have a credit card with and asked for a lower rate...and BAM!!! It dropped just like that. I'm ecstatic! I had actually tried to a couple months ago and they totally denied me. It was at 28.99% (the only late payment I have ever made in my entire life!) and they wouldn't reduce it for me. So I paid it off. Well then I started using it again...it only has about $900 on it but still. The rate got slashed to 9 something. Now I just need my husband to do this for a couple of his...he's not so financially diligent which explains why I have since taken over ALL of the finances. So this promted me to write a post about where exactly I'm at...

Altra Line of Credit	$4,897.00	6.71%
Altra Credit Card	$7,344.68	7.9%*
AAA Credit Card	$1,972.79	7.99%
Sam's BoA	$1,209.14	9.99%
Citi Upromise	$930.44	9.42%
Steve's Chase	$9,855.00	29.99%
Steve's BoA	$633.00	29.99%
Steve's Discover	$4,649.78	21.99%
Kohl's Charge Card	$173.27	----
Total Credit Debt	$31,665.10

Impressive, I know. We also have about $18,000 in vehicle loans, a $6,000 student loan I'm already paying on, and I will have about $40,000 of other student loans that will have to start being repaid when I graduate in December of 2009. So we have about $100,000 of debt. And about $30,000 yearly income.

And where is my emergency fund? It has about $600 in it right now.

Goals for 2009:
1) We need to pump up our emergency fund. I hope to put all "found money" (i.e. tax returns, etc.) into it. Also, I do have a small amount transferred automatically twice a week to my emergency fund. This amount will increase in a couple months.
2) Pay down some high interest credit. In addition, Steve needs to call his credit card companies to request a lower interest rate.
3) I'm going to venture into couponing and trying to find deals on grocery shopping. My goal is shop only twice a week (I can't do once a month shopping since I don't have a large freezer).

It is daunting looking at these figures. I try to see it as a challenge or a game. I play to see how much I can save on expenses in a month. It feels so good to make larger payments than the minimum when I can. Sometimes it is a struggle but to see the numbers slowly going down is well worth all the work.

Also, Steve and I made the pledge to stop using credit cards. Well that didn't happen. We slowed down our usage greatly but have yet to stop altogether. I guess that is another goal for us to work on.

Sometimes I wish I could win the lottery and pay off all of our debt and be done with it but I know I wouldn't feel that I accomplished anything. I need to earn being debt free...even if that takes lots of effort.