The Debt Dance

“Inch by inch, play by play, ’til we’re finished.”
Al Pacino, Any Given Sunday

When we’ve gotten in over our heads, and the resulting aftermath looms as large as Kilimanjaro, the future, our path, becomes overwhelming. With ten cents in our pocket how do we affect change in our lives?

I would suggest that we make very small, attainable goals.


Our son got married last weekend. We wanted to give him an expensive present (a new bed) costing $700. We told him and his fiance about the gift. This was important motivator and was key to our success–we had to achieve our goal because we had already promised it. In the past we would have charged it. But we have given up those choices forever. So this is what we did:

We had two garage sales We went through the house, top to bottom, and gathered things from small to large. I paid for an ebook on having a yard sale from a good website, YardSaleQueen.com. The tips in the ebook were well worth the cost. I advertised in our paper (which is also online) and Craig’s List.

We cut way back on our discretionary spending–no dining out, not even a drive-through soda. We stayed out of stores where we are always tempted to spend more, like Target and Barnes and Noble. The things we had to buy for the wedding we tried to buy on clearance.

We ate what we had on hand-shopping as little as possible.

And, I am happy to say, we achieved our goal.

The success of this small goal has given us insight as to what works for us. We’ve all heard the phrase “build on your successes.” We have found this to be a powerful tool, not only in getting out of debt but in any long term plan or goal. Our next campaign is to dedicate $2,000 to make repairs and updates to our bathroom–without going into debt.

Since we can’t have a yard sale every week we will have to come up with other strategies to make this work. These will include selling some ebooks on Craig’s List, doing computer repair work on the weekends and evenings, and improved marketing on our other two websites, Two Penny Cat.com and Lacteeze Store.com

Take your long term goals, break them into small bites, and, as they say, that is how to eat an elephant!

Your comments are welcome.

NOW HERE’S ONE OF MY FAVORITE FUNNIES:

Two engineering students were walking across campus when one said, “Where did you get such a great bike?”

The second engineer replied, “Well, I was walking along yesterday minding my own business when a beautiful woman
rode up on this bike. She threw the bike to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, “Take what you want.”

The second engineer nodded approvingly, “Good choice; the clothes probably wouldn’t have fit.”

FACE YOUR DREAMS, EMBRACE YOUR LOVES

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