this wasn't in the plan |but life is still pretty good

The following is a guest post by PaidTwice at I've Paid Twice for this Already. She writes about her families adventures in getting out of debt and it's her blog that got me into this mess introduced me to the massive world of blogging and inspired me to start my own. If you like what you see her, consider subscribing to her feed


When Alison invited me to write a guest post for her blog, she suggested that I take a cue from her blog’s title and write about what in my life wasn’t in the plan. And I thought that was a great idea, because it is hard to have anything in the plan if you don’t have a plan to begin with. And for a very long time, that is exactly how I lived my life, especially how it related to money.


That isn’t to say I never daydreamed about the future, or had hopes and dreams about where I wanted to go in life. But they were always vague, and someday, never concrete and specific. I could never picture what it is I was trying to accomplish, which explains in and of itself why I never felt like I was getting any closer to who I wanted to become.


I grew up, earned a few college degrees, got married, and starting having children, all without a real focused plan of where I was going. Not that every twist and turn needed to be mapped out (and couldn’t be!) But without a plan of any kind, it is hard to see if we’re getting anywhere. I floated further into debt and further away from my daydreams and wishes becoming a reality, as I searched my heart and soul for why I wasn’t getting anywhere financially. The American Dream of financial security was something other people lived. I may not have had a plan, but if I did, I am sure it wouldn’t have included being tens of thousands of dollars in debt and tossing and turning at night wondering how we’d pay the bills this month.


And then, a little over a year ago, I realized that if I wanted to get anywhere, I needed to know where it was I wanted to go. And once I knew that, I needed a way to get there - or a plan. Did I want to live the American Dream? I knew one thing for sure - I wanted to be able to live life on my own terms, not my creditors - which meant I needed to get out of debt. So I started actually seriously committing - both in my brain and on paper - to a plan of action for getting out of debt and improving our financial future. No more did I want to worry about how I’d pay the bills. And over the past year, we haven’t gotten there completely, but we are certainly much further towards that goal than I ever thought we would be - all because we actually made a plan.


Never before would I have imagined I could say we spent over $16,000 in the last year on *anything*, especially on debt. But we did. $16,000 and more towards eliminating our over $36,000 debt - and we hope to be done some time in 2009.


This all might not have been in the plan, but now at least, we have a plan. And I expect that makes all the difference.