Time to Buckle Down on Debt

Now that the spending holidays are upon us (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's) it is time to refocus and buckle down on debt. This is the time of year when it becomes real easy to lose your focus and start to spend and charge costumes, gifts, decorations, and all kinds of other holiday cheer. Though you don't have to be a holiday Grinch, be sure to keep the reins on your shopping and spending habits. Remember we are trying to get out of debt here. So instead of going all out on holiday shopping remember to be frugal and don't try keeping up with the Joneses. I know that my frugality and money thriftiness usually go out the door this time of year. So what am I going to do? Well I am glad you asked. It is time to bring myself down to reality and focus on our credit card debt again. Not that we have forgotten or fallen back into our old evil ways, but a friendly reminder of where we are and where we don't want to go will put the holidays into perspective. So here are some steps I plan on taking before the holidays.

1) Make a list of what we owe. In an effort to refocus, I want to make sure we have an idea of exactly what we owe and make sure that we are on track to repay and get out of debt hell.

2) Time to re-prioritize our repayments. We have been paying more that the minimum balance on all of our credit card debt, but I think I am going to start working on a reverse snowballing effect. I think paying off some of our smaller balances first, which happen to have the higher interest rates, will not only makes us feel like we have accomplished something, but will help us knock out our debt faster.

3) Update our budget. Now is the time to update our budget to include what we are going to spend over the holidays, we also need to adjust our budget for our impending arrival.

We usually go crazy during the holidays, so this year the wife and I are going to try and be more focused on our spending habits. This year we will need to be more frugal on our holiday spending and our gift giving. So what kind of plans do you have over the holidays? What are you going to do to save money and what are you going to limit yourself to? The most important thing to remember over the holidays is friends and family. These are the richest gifts you could ever have.