Wednesday, January 31, 2007

A Way Out?

Like most of the middle class in the U.S., I am in debt. I have a credit card debt of over $11,000, and a car loan that is about the same. And yet I am in the midst of trying to get a loan to replace my mobile home (with another one on the same space), and when I get that loan (I feel fairly sure I will) I will have a huge new payment to make each month. Can I do it? I am sure the lender wonders the same thing, and is perusing how I spend my money and pay my bills.

I created this blog to track my progress, and offer suggestions to others in the same boat, in getting off that debt horse. My first plan is to follow Jean Chatzky's Pay it Down! program (see link at right). It is likely that this little book is really all I will need to get on track, because it not only offers a detailed program for getting out of debt but also offers a lot of help for those times when we face really bad financial times. But I expect to draw upon a ton of other resources along the way. Many of these are in the book. Others I will no doubt discover.