An ugly ford letter word... DEBT

I realize that many people consider it in poor taste to discuss one's financial situation but this is something that has been eating away at me. Plus if I shed some light on it perhaps it will shame me into fixing it (always a fantastic motivator). We, like most people, have a lot of debt. Now, Alan and I are responsible people. We work hard, pay our bills on time and budget but we have always had a hard time saving. This gets us in trouble time and time again. I can't begin to recall the times we were caught off guard with a vet bill or car repair that went on the credit card. Our other weak spot... travel. When you live several states away from most of your family it is very hard to not rack up costs. Between airfare, hotel, car rental, parking, dog sitter, loss of wages (my part-time job gives me no vacation), and spending money we easily spend $1000 every time we visit someone. And normally we do set aside some money but never enough to cover all of the expenses. It's pretty easy to justify it when your spending quality time with you family.

If I'm going to be really honest, I need to admit to our previous bad spending habits. When I was with starbucks and making an actual decent salary, Alan's and my combined income should have covered all our expenses with plently to put into savings. But we blew SO much money on eating out and just as much on groceries. I could just kick myself when I think about it. It wasn't until I left Starbucks to go back to school and work part-time that we realized how tight things were going to be, all of this with a baby on the way (gulp!). We had to take a serious look at were our money was going. We made cuts by canceling our phone (we only used our cell phones anyways), cheaper tv, driving less, canceling magazines and satelite radio subcriptions, eating out less (if at all), and cutting our grocery cost in half. This was a good dent but all it has done is make so we can live... still no savings. We need to take it to the next level. We need to save something or this cycle will continue.

Our goal is to save $2000. This should cover any basic emergencies but not the loss of a job (knock on wood). After that we will really focus on the credit cards starting with the one with the highest interest and working our way down. We also have some medical bills from when Luke was born and a car to pay off but, those will be our second priorities. Someday, when our combined incomes is much higher, we will amass a true nest egg. By the way, to all of our generous family members reading this post, this is not a cry for help, just a way to motivate and focus on our goal. We got ourselves in this mess we can get ourselves out of it!