by Tricia
If you are visiting the first time after reading the article about me written by Scott Burns, I’d just like to say thanks for stopping by. Scott was a great interviewer, and after reading his words – wow. He said some really nice things about what I am doing. Thank you Scott.
I do have a little About Me page that gives a few links to pages where I discuss our income as well as our expenses. I’ve found that keeping track of where our money goes has been instrumental in reducing our debt. Basically, what I have been doing here is just writing about things I am doing to reduce our credit card debt. I post it online and I welcome all comments or questions. Although there are many basic methods for debt reduction, there is a lot more to it. I try to write about what is working for us. As Scott mentioned, I even gave people to people lending a try through Prosper.com. I managed to take a bit of our debt and reduce the interest rate from over 16% to 9.9%.Â
I also have on the bottom right hand side of my blog a list of other blogs that I follow. There is a great world of personal finance blogs out there and each of them offer something of interest and I can’t thank them enough for the support they have given me.  To keep up with other happenings with personal finance blogs, my main tool is pfblogs.org. This site displays the feed of over 300 blogs and confinually updates with new posts.
I welcome you to subscribe to my feed if you’d like to keep track of how things are going. And again I would like to thank you for stopping by 🙂
Every one writes on tricks on how to prosper.Be introvert please and my question is to them only.
Are they properous and rich?Is the top advisor ranking among world’s properous people?Please think about yourself and reply.My mail Ad.is given.I am sure ,I will contradict or atleast able to contradict every line.
Hi. I was impressed with the article about you in today’s Boston Globe. One thought came to mind. In the early 1990’s Amy Dacyczyn of Leeds, Maine published a newsletter called The Tightwad Gazette. It remains the best collection of ideas about frugal living I have ever seen. All newsletter volumes were collected and published as The Complete Tightwad Gazette in 1998 by Random House ISBN: 0-375-75225-0. She addresses all the major issues–cost cutting, credit cards, dealing with peer pressure and so on. Anyone interested in this topic should try to obtain it via the public library.
Hi Maria, I have heard of the Tightwad Gazette but I have yet to read them. Everything I have heard is about how great they are. They are next on my “to read” list 🙂
Thanks for commenting and sharing with everyone!
Wow! I am very impressed – your debt reduction from end Feb thru end July has an APR over 50%.
Keep it up!
Congratulations on the snowball of debt reduction. I don’t know if you have read Dave Ramsey’s book “Financial Peace” or “Money Make-over” but both are a great read and substantiated everything I’ve ever believed about finances. He suggest some great tools to manage money i.e. Combine your grocery and dining out budget to just one “Food” and use cash for both. That way you don’t have another July month like you did. Anyway, wanted to say there are many who support what you are doing. Keep going, it gets better.
Dennis and Dane,
Thank you so much for stopping by and for your nice comments. I am actually pulling from a few different debt reduction methods that I have read online to tailor something that works for us. I have not had an opportunity to read about Dave Ramsey yet, but hopefully at the beginning of next year I will have some more time to read. I know there are many that follow Dave’s method and I am very curious to read what that entails.
Your willingness to share your experiences can be helpful to anybody regardless of age. As a in-front of the pack baby boomer my goals are to continue 1) to save as much as possible through retirement accounts 2) focus on reducing credit card debt and 3) begin to downsize our household. Steps to work on implementing debt-reduction strategies are made easier when one utilizes spreadsheets, online calculators etc. Your blog is a wonderful reference to those tools. Keep up the good work!
I really need some help–where do I begin
57 years old
single parent
3 sons–2 in college
2nd year high school teacher (new career)
$28,000 credit card debt
no mortgage no car pymt
Robert – wow, thank you!
Kathleen – you’ve already done the first step which is realizing that you want and need to do something about your situation and that’s great! I am going to write a post about what I did to get going on getting rid of the credit card debt so please stay tuned. One thing though, you always should do what is best for you and your situation. Personal finance is so interesting because I don’t think any two situations are exactly the same.
Tricia- my mom gave me the Burns article and I am so excited! My husband and I make just over 100,000 a year and are in debt that is ridiculous. We make enough that we shouldn’t have this debt, but we have been careless. I am so thankful that my mom gave me the article because I am going to read everything and commit to cleaning up our debt. Thanks to you I am going to change our lives for the better and for our family.
Cynthia – wow, I’m not sure if you realize how wonderful your comment makes me feel. I am so glad that you are ready to commit to becoming debt-free and it sounds like you have the “spark” to make it happen. Do let me know how you are doing, okay? I’d love to offer support because it is so important to have. All the best on your journey!! 🙂
Tricia:
I read the Scott Burns article in the DMN and was deeply impressed by your humbleness. I work for a bankruptcy attorney and I see the devestation credit cards (not to mention the new bankruptcy law) do to individuals. Your efforts to rid you and your family of the heavy burden of debt is an inspiration to all of us regardless of the task at hand. Thank you and as the old saying goes…progress not perfection!!
Some good and interesting content