i am a gazelle

Not really. Thanks to Charlie Triplett, we have started reading Dave Ramsey's Your Total Money Makeover. Basically, we want to get out of debt. "Why?" you might ask. Or, "What kind of debt do you have that you are so motivated to get drastic?" Well, I have about $19K left from Salem & the UofA. We have our Civic, which we still owe $6K on. And I think that's it. Mark has no college debt. Yay, Arkansas (i.e. WalMart funding). And that really isn't that bad if you compare us to most mid-twenties young marrieds'. So here's how it works: save a little money ($1000 to be exact), then start paying down all of the random debts - usually starting with credit cards and working your way up to the big ones. You pay the principal on everything, meanwhile paying over as much as you possibly can on the littler guys. I cannot emphasize the "as much as you possibly can" part enough. This is where the gazelle comes in. Think of a gazelle as it realizes it's about to be pounced on by a cheetah. [This is the analogy Dave Ramsey uses, so it's qualified...] The gazelle gets intense. And one has to be intense when cutting expenses. As you pay off the the littler guys, you progressively work your way up to the big dudes. You have to cut out any spending that keeps you from paying significantly over so as to quickly rid yourself of whatever debt you are working on. And to pay over may mean selling something. To know what you need to cut, you need to track your spending patterns and work a budget every single month. It's intimidating, but the thought of being debt free in less than 2 years just tickles me. Everytime you pay off one smaller debt you add that amount to the overpay on the next guy. Another really cool thing is that budget planning is date night for me and hubby. And the budget becomes something we share, stress or not. Maybe I am a gazelle.