Honey I Love You... Debt I Hate You!

So  today is Valentines day and my hubby and I have generally sat around and made goggly eyes at one another while making a have baked valentine's day celebration plan that required us to sit in the house and avoid the mad rush of celebrators... Today is no different. Well, there is one difference we have added a bouncing bundle of joy to our valentines day home celebration so now we are making goggly eyes at him too.

In the midst of celebrating valentines our traditional way Hubby and I had a conversation about our debt. It went a little something like this... "Honey I love you" (pulled up our budget on the computer), "Debt I HATE you". Yea that pretty much sums up the beginning conversation. But then I began thinking, If I truly love myself, my husband and my son then why do I continue to allow us to live with something we hate so much. I went back to my husband and we began to have a real conversation about getting out of debt. Debt (darn you Student loans) has crippled us for years. And then we threw a baby in the mix so our budget consists of daycare, diapers, student loans, and credit cards, and that is a recipe for a mental break down.

So this valentines day along with our goggly eyes, and home body celebration we also made a pact to show ourselves, and our son how much we really love each other by getting out of debt. Getting out of debt to us is like saying I believe in your future enough not to spend your future on debt payments. So these are the four steps we are starting today... Maybe you can join us.

1. Cut down fast food- So we have been eating a lot of our money. We will be cutting our fast food/ restaurant dinning to once per week. This may sound like a lot to you but let's just say McDonalds was like our cafeteria.
2. Give every dollar a destination- We would get so excited when we had extra money after our bills were paid, our allowance was dispersed, our groceries were purchased, and baby stuff was bought. Because we were so excited we would spend that money on... well actually we don't know what we spent it on, and there lies the problem. We are going to sit and talk about where that extra money can go in order to make the biggest impact on our future. 
3. Have a 1,000 dollar emergency fund- We got the 1,000 from Dave Ramsey. But let's face it, life happens and if we 0 out every month to pay debt and live if a tire needs to be replaced we would be in BIG trouble.
4. Continue to tithe- I look around and I see people in financial stress all around me. Steve and I have been there. But we tithed our way threw. I remember when Steve had a minimum wage paying job, I was teaching and Steve says "Babe I want to tithe based on the salary I desire". My response was... well let's just say it lacked support. But we did it and he has surpassed that salary. So I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we will continue to tithe and believe God that we will be DEBT FREE!

So this is my valentines day declaration to my family "I love you, and I hate debt so I promise that I wont force you all to live with it any more!"