WE. ARE. THE. JONES'.

I'm new to this blogging thing and I'm really doing it mostly for me, but on the off chance someone stops by here I guess I should let you know how we are tackling our debt. First of all, I am married but I handle almost all of our family's finances. This has proved to be a double-edged sword. I am very ashamed of our debt and in many ways feel like it is completely my fault (because I handle the finances). That's not the reality, the credit card debt we have was obtained by both of us in the exact same way most people find themselves in debt: spending and living beyond our means.

Because of the shame I feel about our debt, no one really knows about it. All of our friends and family think we are well off financially and very secure; and in a lot of ways we are, sort of. Both my husband and I make good salaries, contribute to our 401Ks, take lavish, long vacations, and drive nice cars. But we still have debt. Apparently, WE. ARE. THE. JONES'.

The worst part about our whole situation is that I basically hide it from my husband. He knows about the car payment but he doesn't know about the credit card debt. You see, we have 2 cards: one we pay off monthly and one that has had a balance on it for 4 years!!! We went on a trip to Hawaii using credit card number 2, and have had a balance on it ever since.

Several years ago, my husband and I took Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. It's such a simple, effective plan but somehow in the last few years, we've I've wandered away from that. Our My goal is to get back to it, but in a modified version that works for our family and our lifestyle. We've already completed Baby Step Number 1: create a $1000 emergency fund. We I am currently working Baby Step Number 2: pay off debts from least to greatest. We had two small family loans that have already been paid back. Now I'm working the snowball on the credit card balance we have.

The main way that we modify Dave's plan is that we continue to contribute, above and beyond any employer match, to our retirement. Both my husband and I are very afraid of not being able to retire comfortably or being a burden on our children, but I'll go into more detail on this later. This is by the far the biggest way we disagree with Dave. I am also not "gazelle intense". I attribute this mostly to the fact that I hide our debt so I don't want to compromise our lifestyle because then "someone might know". Seeing those words in writing is very painful... Hopefully the pain will create change!