Well I actually feel some sense of accomplishment today because for the first time in a LONG TIME Card 2 is under $10,000. I expect that once the statement closes next month that it will probably push it back over with the interest charge but for now I'm doing a happy dance (good thing no one can see that...it would be ugly!) So close to getting under $50k in total consumer debt and I can't tell you how excited I am to see the 40's (supposedly in temperature soon too!) Paid the mortgage (we have a $405k at a fixed 5.875 with about 400.7k left) this payday and I had about $500 in ebay money to help pay on Card 2. I've got carpet cleaners coming Friday for about $500 worth of work and I have to pay my ugly gas bill with the next check on 2/4 ($1450.00) but at least I only have to pay it twice a year and we will be cash flowing the whole thing (YAY!)

Debt Tracker (01/21/09)
Card 1: $40840.04 (8.99)
Card 2: $9959.69 (7.99)
Total: $50799.73

Just a reminder where we started:
5/1/08
$110,000 on NINE CC's. It's been a battle for the last 8.5 months but it's been worth it!

Well in the last 10 days we've managed to do some serious horror movie type slashing on some of our debt. Thanks to some bonus money and cutting back on plans to go from PA to AZ in March for my birthday we've made quite a little dent in Card 2 on the debt reduction planner.

As for why O Canada...I have been watching this show called "Til Debt Do Us Part" which is shown on the Canadian network Slice and it basically has these couples who are desperately buried in debt (a lot of consumer debt...but then a lot of total debt as well) and this woman comes and basically gives them a massive wakeup call and a plan they can move forward with to reign in their spending and excess. It's actually not that bad (and not dry at all...the challenges are not just based around $ but based on communication and working together in your relationship to get to the best result.) If they do all the challenges Gail sets forth for them they get $5000 to put towards their debt load. First step is always taking the credit cards AND debit cards away (and doing some Dave Ramsey Plasectomy-esque things to rid these people of their cc's) and then bringing back the debit cards back every week so they can refill the budget jars (glass jars with a category for each thing they would spend on discretionary wise...like food, clothing, transportation, etc.) If it's ever on here in the US I'd highly recommend it to people (though some of what she teaches is Canadian based most of the principles would work here for us.)

Just thought I'd share...now maybe if the Eagles could get their act together and win this game...! Here's the debt update:

Debt Tracker (01/18/09)
Card 1: $40840.04 (8.99)
Card 2: $10571.23 (7.99)
Total: $51411.27

Well that was some kind of crazy holiday madness we went through the last 30 days. I ended up having to go from PA to Chicago on Christmas Day and then down to Orlando through New Year's before coming back up. We got to Universal Studios in Orlando as well before going to relatives of mine on the east coast of Florida (north of West Palm Beach.) For the first time ever we budgeted and cash flowed all our gifts and we actually did really well. With all of this hectic moving and shaking and holiday meals and planning and gifts and decorations and everything we stuck to our guns and incurred NO NEW DEBT! It feels really good to know we have no payments on anything we bought for the holidays. We didn't get as much of a dent in our debt tracker as I would've liked but we are getting a bonus of over $6000 on Monday and a good chunk of that will go to Card 2. I think now that we're out of the most expensive holiday time of the year it's going to be all out war on the last two cards so we can be debt free for Xmas 2009!

Here is an updated tracker. When I last left it we were around $61k and change owed. We were able to nibble at them a bit and since 5/1/08 have knocked out over $51,000 off of the total owed. We feel really good about the prospects of getting out of this for good by the end of 2009. Here goes!

Debt Tracker (01/08/09)
Card 1: $40840.04 (8.99)
Card 2: $17494.31 (8.99)
Total: $58334.35