A New Month!

It is the start of another month, and we've not made as much progress as I would have liked.  One big glaring item on our budget is the amount of money that we spend every month just to live in this house.  It is becoming more and more of a burden, and less the dream we thought we wanted.

Our house is undoubtedly our largest expense and our largest debt.  Selling it might bring in enough extra money that we could have a down payment on the next one, and we don't have any issue at all with down sizing.  If we were to try and rent instead of buy, the rental market is so strong right now that we'd almost spend the same as we are now, but we'd be in a smaller house and a "less desirable" neighborhood.  I put that in quotes, because I really don't have a problem living in areas that have houses running in the 50%-75% value of our current house.

The rental market being what it is, it also presents us with a dilemma - do we sell the house, or utilize the strong rental market and rent it out?

Still Plugging Away...

I'm updating this blog for the first time in about 6 years.  In that time, several things have happened:

1. My son has gotten about 6 years older.
2. Our non-medical debt has dropped, albeit not extensively.
3. I have a just over 2-year-old daughter.
4. Our medical debt has skyrocketed.
5. Our income has increased.
6. We have a health insurance alternative in place.
7. Our income has decreased.

My income was hovering around the $55k/year until last year, when it increased to just over $60k.  In January 2015, my income was hovering closer to the $65k mark.  Then, in July, I was told to cut my hours back from about 55 hrs/week to no more than 45 hrs/week.  We are now existing on take-home of about $1,200 less per month than previously.

As a result, I'm updating this blog again to get motivated, and to make sure that I'm on track for actually decreasing the debt we've gotten into.

If there is anybody out there still listening, drop me a comment, and I will answer any questions in future blog posts.  For now, I'm putting together the information to track my progress, and am going to get into the habit of at least doing my monthly updates again.  Tips, tricks, and the detail of my climb out of debt, even after a few mis-steps, will all be chronicled here.

I'm just looking for that smooth, round stone right now...