Debt Free Friday

Okay before you get excited and start screaming "I'm deeeeeeeeebt freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" with me, I'm not debt free. 

If you and your family are, please write me a book down there in the comments section with pointers/encouragement as to how you got there.

But it is Debt Free Friday on the Dave Ramsey show.  I love listening to people calling in telling all about how they got out of debt.  It does make me a twinge jealous though. 

I want that.

But right now I'm not acting like it.  I'm going out to restaurants tonight too often. I'm slacking on my couponing.  I'm bumping the temperature up a few extra degrees when I get home from work. (In my defense on this one, I'm turning it up to 62* from 60*)  I need to refocus.

Right now we have 2 debts: our house and a stoopid piece of commercial property that Jay and his parents bought together before we were married and my "NO" vote counted.  I sort of feel like now that we're on baby step 6, my gazelle-ness has worn off. 

Just in case you haven't drank the Dave Ramsey kool-aid here are his baby steps to getting out of debt and building wealth:

1) $1,000 starter emergency fund
2) Debt snow ball (paying off the debts in order of smallest amount to largest)
3) 3-6 months of expenses emergency fund
4) 15% of income towards retirement*
5) Kids college fund
6) Pay off mortgage
7) Build wealth & give

*This one only applies if you have kids

As you can see, we're sorta, kinda, half way on #6.  Due to the amount of the investment property, Dave (as I've heard him relate to other people on the air) would classify it in step 6. 

Dave would also say "I told you so" on going into partnership with anyone (including family).  Even if Jay and I were in a position to pay off our portion of the land, we couldn't do it right now unless his parents were in agreement.  Since its a piece of vacant commercial land, the loan has to be resigned every 3 years. 

Jay and I have decided that we want to work our buns off to have that money in savings in 2013 so that we don't have to resign. When presented in that fashion, the monthly payment will be lowered by the amount paid in, leaving the payment amount exactly his parents portion. 

I guess part of the reason I'm writing this blog is because I want to get back into it.  I want to save and pay down my mortgage and celebrate that every month is one month closer to being done with BOA (and debt) forever!

Our goal is to have the commercial land paid off (or sold) in 3 years, and the house paid off in 5 4 years.  (5 years was last year's goal, but we didn't do much to pay it down.) 

We're certainly not going to do that unless we buckle down.  I can take my personal spending down from $125 to $100 a month.  That might sound high but remember hair cuts, dinner out with the girls, books, clothes all come out of that budget.  We need to get better about food - both eating out and shopping at the grocery store.

Other than those things (and traveling and remodeling) I don't know where else we could cut back.  What are some ways you save a little extra here and there?