30 Day Blog Challenge: Days 27 & 28

Once again, I'm late on these. Busy weekend. Hubs and I went fishing on Saturday morning. He had gone the day before and caught a lot of fish so we thought it would be fun to go together. Well, 6am came too early on Saturday and lets just say that catching no fish + 40 degree weather = unhappy me. Hubs caught fish, but I couldn't feel my fingers so I gave up pretty quickly. He told me to quit whining like a 12 year old, so naturally I just sat in the back of the boat with my arms crossed for awhile after that. haha :)

But anyway... on to the blog challenge! This has been a lot of fun and I have no clue what I will post about when its over! :)

Day 27: Pets

Cookie was my first very own dog. She is a black lab, dalmation mix. We got her when I was about 7 or 8. She has been the best dog. Always so sweet.

Here she is at Christmas a few years ago. She is going on 14 years old now and has a lot more gray on her little face, but she is still as sweet as ever. She lives with my mom and I miss her. But I have all of these other crazy fur babies keeping me busy here at home with hubs.

Jack is Brian's black lab. He and hubs were bachelors together before I came along :) He is the most gentle big baby ever. He loves playing with our dachshunds and is so sweet with them, although he does step on them everyonce and awhile, but hey, hes BIG!

He loves the water!

Beautiful boy.

And of course there are the two weenie babies.

This is Captain, the (former) miniature dachshund. I say former, because he now weighs too much to be considered "miniature." Hes about 15 lbs now. The biggest "mini" dachshund I've ever seen, but he's not fat, just all muscle. He is 15 lbs of pure force when he plays, it wears me out!

This is Chloe. She is a force to be reckoned with as well, except she was the runt of the litter, so she is half of what Captain weighs. She may gain a pound or two when she is full grown, but she will always be small.

Our weenie babies love each other! So cute!

and Day 28: What stresses you out?

To be honest, not much stresses me out. That is a good thing because I think stress can really kill you if you're under it too long, but then again, stress can also be good for getting things done. I think when it came to studying for tests and writing papers in college, that stressed me out, but it was good that I felt the pressure to get things done (even though it was usually the last minute- procrastination is a whole different issue!).  I think I'm just more laid back. I've been with the same job for 8 years now. It is the kind of environment that some people can't handle, because the stress can really get bad at times, but I just take things as they come and at the end of the day, things are always ok, so I never let it get to me.

Lately money stresses me out, but I don't worry about it. I guess its a fine line between the two.

I'm having fun with this challenge!

"Debt is Dumb"

I was just doing my daily reading of all my favorite blogs and I came across a post by Thrifty Decor Chick (which you can read here) about Dave Ramsey. She writes about how she and her family are paying off their debt using Dave Ramsey's plan. This got me wanting to write a post about it as well because just last night hubs and I were making our "snowball debt" list. If you follow Dave's plan, then you start with your smallest debt and pay it off first in order to have more money to put towards much bigger debts.

I will be honest here. It was disappointing, no rather, disheartening, once we put it all down on paper. I typed all the numbers into my calculator, hit equal, and the number on the tiny screen took my breath away. Not only did it make me sad in a way, that we had so far to go, it made me mad. I was angry that we have allowed ourselves to become slaves. Slaves to debt. We live to work and pay off our debt. When in reality we should be serving something (Someone) much more worthy. Dave says that in order for his plan to work you have to get mad. You have got to realize the crappy situation you are in and you have to be angry enough at your debt to want to banish it from your life and never let it return. And I truly believe we are at that point.

Just like the post linked to above says, we do not follow his plan word for word either. But we have a budget and we do our best to stick to it. It is awesome to be motivated to change our situation. It will be a lot better once we are able to sell Brian's car. That will take a huge chunk out of what we owe. We are so ready to be rid of our debt and have freedom from the chains that money can put on you.

Anyone else trying to get out of debt? What plan are you using?

The First Step

Today, Hubs and I took a very big step. This step was our first big leap towards being debt free. Hubs wasn't so wise in the past (heck, who is?) and as a result, we now have debt that we really want to get rid of. I don't want to sound like I'm an angel financially. I'm the girl who financed her wedding dress, only to discover she actually didn't love it and bought another dress before the old dress was even paid off. True story. And lets not even start with my student loans.

Our getaway car

We knew our first step was to get rid of hubs's baby- his Shelby GT500. I think I actually love this car more than he does, but the monthly payment is too much to handle, especially with the goals we have for our future. So today we looked at and bought another car for hubs so he can sell his Shelby. I'm so proud of him for doing this. Its a big step down from a Shelby to an old truck. I'm happy that he's happy, and he's happy he has a truck to tow his boat. Now we will start the process of selling his car.

We've been talking about starting the process to become debt free and now we are finally able to see progress. Its easy to talk about something, but even harder to put it into action. God has been so good to us. Its been a struggle for the past year or so, but we've never gone without and its awesome how much more God provides for us now that we are being good stewards with all the blessings he has given us.