Our total debt isn’t as extreme as some, but living on one income makes it tough. We have your standard American dream, the home, the kids, the dog, and up to our eyeballs in debt. Some dream….
Graduating from college in 2001, my wife and I left with $20,000 plus in credit card debt in addition to the student loan debt. Hey, you should have seen all those free T-shirts! At that time finding a career was extremely difficult. We worked part time jobs, temporary jobs and any other ways to try and make the minimum payments. We were consistently late on payments, had creditors calling, and collection agencies harassing us for payment. We were young and foolish and got help with a consumer credit counseling agency.

We were on their plan for few years faithfully paying the designated amount around $500 a month to them so they could disburse the payments to the various creditors. At the end of the program I enrolled in a masters program and took out more student loans. With the overpayment to the school they refunded it to me which I in turn bought some school supplies, laptop, etc. adding to my financial mess of debt.

Within six months of finishing the CCCS plan we applied for the first credit card and were approved to begin rebuilding our credit score. This set in motion the shovel and the digging an even deeper hole that we were already standing in.

At the start of this blog total debt amounted to roughly $72,500.

This blog will serve as a reminder to us and encouragement to you that it can be done, but you will see our struggles as we fight, fight, fight to stay on track. Not blowing the budget, finding additional income, and remain ever focused and optimistic that there may be a light at the end of the tunnel.
As you may have guessed from the name of this blog we are followers of the Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover