So what happened? How did we get so far into debt?

Yesterday I talked a bit about our family being in financial distress. It's a hard realization. But I think it's like other problems: until you realize that you really do have a problem, it doesn't seem real to you.

So we have a problem with money. Not necessarily with making money; my husband and I both work hard and have good jobs. We just aren't spending it wisely, and not saving it for rainy days.

We have debt. We have student loans, 1 car payment ( thankfully one is paid off) a mortgage, 2 credit cards, medical bills and a mortgage. Dave Ramsey would say we "are normal". He also would say normal people are broke. Ugh. We are.

The problem really happened this summer. My last paycheck was May 15th. I wouldn't get paid again until August 31st. We had put a little money back for summer, but not near enough for what we needed. I mean what was I even thinking? Why did I not sit down and actually map out how much money we would need? Lesson learned. We were way way short.

Early on in the summer we went on vacation with my husband's family. We do this every other year. My father in law rents the house, we pay for everything else. Although we didn't live it up on vacation, there was the extra expense of gas, groceries and eating out. We spent money that we should have been saving for the rest of the summer. I'm just being honest here guys, we messed up.

I took two classes towards my PhD this summer, and we paid out of pocket. Although, I'm thankful we had that money we could put towards my education without additional debt, we should have saved more.

Things like our mortgage and electric bill needed to be paid, but we didn't have enough to cover it from my husband's checks, so out comes the credit cards that we haven't used in sooo sooo long. Ugh.... again I'm thankful we were able to pay, but we are just in a mess.

So we are going to stop digging. That is what it comes down to. We have got to stop getting further into debt.. We have to start making progress and get some savings built back up. Tomorrow I'll talk about our future goals, then I'll talk about things we are doing to hopefully help. After that I'll get back to just posting on the regular happenings around the homestead with some updates thrown in every so often.

Happy Homesteading Y'all.