How do you stay encouraged?

bjlucas1 · May 2014

Hello all- I am an infrequent poster but a long time reader

I have learned so much from you all, so thank you!

I was just wondering how you stay encouraged? I feel like my amount of debt is so big and my saving's contributions are so small comparatively that it is hard to stay positive. Im doing a lot of things right in regard to savings, etc… but there is much more I should be doing. When I look back at where I was a year ago I can see progress but the month-to-month victories seem insignificant. My husband received an awesome raise a couple of months ago but since then we had car repairs and had to buy him a new laptop for work so it all but balanced out. Im grateful that we didn't have to dip into our savings of course but Im feeling stressed.

vlagrl29 · May 2014

Think in baby chunks of amount of debt paid off. We started with getting rid of DD's medical bill from delivery. Once that was paid off I was feeling pretty good about our financial situation. Then we paid off mine and DH's CC's. After that we started saving for an e fund. Now we are putting more in retirement. Every time you accomplish something small you should feel great. Kind of like loosing weight. It is discouraging to think you have to loose 80lbs, so every 10lbs I would loose I would feel happy because I was 1 step closer to my goal.

Erikan73 · May 2014

I actually have a notebook with a few pages for each debt. It's a place where I can keep track of who I spoke with & when as I was starting to set up payment plans. Then as monthly payments were made I updated the balance owed to each company. It's been nice seeing ones paid off & others getting smaller.

brij2006 · May 2014

We have this posted on our fridge. We want to do a debt free scream on Dave Ramsey's radio show, then drive the rest of the way to Universal Studios for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter (we're nerds like that). Each month after we make our extra debt payment, we shade in a little more.

hoffse · May 2014

brij2006 said:

We have this posted on our fridge. We want to do a debt free scream on Dave Ramsey's radio show, then drive the rest of the way to Universal Studios for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter (we're nerds like that). Each month after we make our extra debt payment, we shade in a little more.

OK well while I wouldn't do the debt free scream.... that drawing is badass. I think I need one for my fridge too...

brij2006 · May 2014

hoffse said:

brij2006 said:

We have this posted on our fridge. We want to do a debt free scream on Dave Ramsey's radio show, then drive the rest of the way to Universal Studios for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter (we're nerds like that). Each month after we make our extra debt payment, we shade in a little more.

OK well while I wouldn't do the debt free scream.... that drawing is badass. I think I need one for my fridge too...

Wish I could take credit for it. It was just from a quick Google search. :-) I'm nowhere near that crafty.

bjlucas1 · May 2014

I love all of your ideas, especially the Harry P picture. That would make me happy to see everyday

brij2006 · May 2014

I also play budget games with myself on a monthly basis. I'm definitely one of those people who has to set goals and likes a challenge. So I will challenge myself to spend $100 less on our food budget for the month (the one I have the hardest time sticking to), or challenge myself to feed a party of 10 for a get together on less than $30. It gives me little boosts knowing that I can do this and stick to it, while not rewarding myself with things that may blow our budget.

Mom987 · May 2014

I go through phases where I won't spend ANYTHING I don't need. Other times I'll spend $6 on a lunch (which is high for me).

Mom987 · May 2014

I really like the visual of coloring in more each time.

cbee817 · May 2014

When DH and I had student loans and car payments, I always kept an amortization schedule of the loan in excel. Every time we made extra payments, it was nice to see how things changed and how many months (and eventually years) we could shave off the original loan. It kind of turned into a game.

I paid off my car over 2 years ahead of time (4 year loan- $15,000), DH was 21 months ahead of schedule (4 year loan - $15,000), and he paid off his SL (10 year loan- $37,000) in only 4 years.

Right now, we just have a mortgage ($105,000 left)- we refinanced down to a 15 year in 2010, so right away that saved us quite a bit. Once DD#1 is out of day care, we'll add $500/month to the principal. Once DD#2 is out of day care, we'll bump it up to $1,000 extra and have the house paid off when DD#1 is 10, DD#2 is 8 (We'll be 39, 38 that same year). In the meantime, we'll need newer cars as well, but we'll have an extra $350/month when DD#1 is out of day care to cover 1 car payment. We'll get the next car when DD#2 is out of daycare since we'll have another $350/month to cover it.

It's amazing how much will change once the girls are out of day care- $1,700 extra/month is huge and we're really looking forward to it! Although I want them to stay this little forever...

KatieCutie05 · May 2014

you need to have a specific goal and a plan to achieve them -thats really the key. instead of trying to do 2 things at once we're doing one thing at a time which help us reach each little goal sooner. I've discovered that if i focus on the fact that i have 110k in student loans i feel hopeless. after all what good is even $100 on that large of a hole. We're following Dave Ramseys snowball... and trust me most days lately i just want to crawl in a hole and cry. Hope is fading quickly. The only thing that gives me hope is the small goals... one step at a time. DR plan says to "focus" on the smallest debt first. So we are putting all our extra money at that and physically focusing the extra money at that... But what didn't really occur to me was how much i'm still emotionally focused on that huge student loan balance. we're starting down the barrel of 129k in non mortgage debt. i was letting myself focus on that which just makes me feel completely hopeless. So i realized that i need to try to re align my focus and ONLY worry about getting that smallest debt paid off. every dollar matters more when its out of 7k... and it looks like a fraction of a penny when its in 129k. I just want this car paid off right now.... then i'll worry about the next one. Small goals.

We have a number of Goals now... big picture goal is I want to have all my student loans paid off by the time i turn 30 - i turned 26 last week so i have just under 4 years... its gonna be tough but all i can do is try.

Small goals are to be debt free in our names.. (paying off 41k) in 18 months.... so i printed out the debt snowball month by month payoff where it shows how much we need to pay each month in order to reach that goal. I have a goal column and a actual column so i can see months we fell short and months we did better. that way its broken down into smaller monthly goals and we know what we need to do each month in order to reach our larger goal.

lifeonthehill · May 2014

We do one thing at a time.

Short term right now it is a student loan and we have 2,900ish to go. When it gets paid off we will go to dinner just the two of us which we are always too cheap to do. We do it every time we hit a small goal which is generally every 3 or 4 months. We don't go out alone in between to make it better.

Long term I have a big list of what we want to do before TTC and crossing it off as we go is the bast feeling for both of us. Realizing what we want and mapping out a serious plan on how to get there has been so helpful. We have it planned out two years right now. If all stays on track we will be able to TTC Summer 2016 and we will do everything we can to make sure that works out.

brij2006 · May 2014

I agree with @katiecutie05 breaking things down helps so much! We have broken ours down to thinking, "3k left and H's college degree will be officially paid for." Right now our goal is my last unsubsidized SL of $2,700. It will be done by the end of June! If I looked at the fact that we have almost $71k in non-mortgage debt, I would quickly be discouraged.

What also helps is that I know it's going to take us 2 years to get debt free. If we create more income or sell more things, then it will take us even less. Right now I have a goal to sell my car that carries $17k of our debt. Once that is sold, then it will get us debt free 1 year from now. Then we can save up to have a nicer car again. So I am constantly plugging extra money into our debt snowball spreadsheet to see how much we have to add each month to get to our goal even quicker.

strickland8052 · May 2014

I'm crazy OCD about money and a big chart person, so this is about to sound complicated but it works for me...

I created an excel spread sheet with all our expenses as of right now. I highlighted those expenses that are going to go away eventually (my car payment to be paid off in January, a dental bill that will be paid off in August, the cable bill which we will not be renewing when the contract runs out next April).

I also made a list of expenses that will probably pop up over the next five years (day care once we have a child and a car for H when his car dies.)

Then I made a chart of how much money we have now broken out by retirement and general savings (we don't really have any debt other than 0% interest and mortgage; otherwise, I would make a separate chart for debt too.) I call it my "Suze Orman Chart", because she breaks out a similar chart for people on her "Can I afford it?" segment.

Finally, I calculated a conservative number for how much we can save each month, accounting for the expenses that will go away and the expenses that will pop up. I then put together a projected "Suze Orman Chart" for January 2015, January 2016, and January 2017. I also include a rough estimate of our monthly expenses for each year as well.

It is a boring old spreadsheet (not near as exciting as that fun Harry Potter picture!), but it is exciting to see how much lower our expenses will be in 2016, once my car is paid off. It is also encouraging to see how much we will have in retirement and general savings in January 2016 versus now.

I've been frustrated too, because I have bad baby fever. It seems like we will never have enough money to comfortably have a baby, but my chart has showed me that we should be financially ready by next fall if we just stay on track.

I know that things do "creep up", but I think good things do as well. In my charts, I never consider things like tax refunds or gifts or raises, because I figure that for every unexpected extra dollar comes an unexpected extra expense. For example, we got a nice tax refund this year, but then we got a big ol' leak in our roof the next week. It all worked out, because of the tax refund, but I'm glad that I didn't really consider that tax refund as a necessity for my project chart.

Good luck!

MommyLiberty5013 · May 2014

We use Excel spreadsheets with the graphing feature to visually depict our savings growth. It's exciting to watch the line graph trend upward!

You could do the same thing for a debt line graph trending downward.

How do you stay encouraged?

Re: How do you stay encouraged?

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