Falling out of debt

*Disclaimer: Dear Mom, Please don't be embarrassed that I'm sharing this on my blog. You raised me right. I promise! :-) Love, Me

I'm on a mission. I've had enough and I'm just not going to take it anymore. I WANT OUT OF DEBT!!!! It is a stupid self-imposed prison and I am sick of it.

Ok, test time... I hate to:
A) listen to my voice mail
B) open my snail mail
C) pluck my eyebrows
D) clean the chicken coop
E) all of the above

If you guessed E you would be correct!! Woo Hoo!!! Not that you won anything but isn't the feeling of being correct simply awesome? Yeah, that's how I feel all the time. But I digress...

Back to the debt. Here's a few problems I see with our current situation:

1. We don't have a system to receive mail (bills) into our home.
2. We don't have a system to pay bills in our home.
3. We don't have a budget "hold on...let me check online to see if we have money in the account" is NOT a budget.
4. We don't have any accountability to each other for what money we bring in or what we send out.

Can you see the problem here? Yeah, it's a miracle we've survived this long. We could blame our parents (insert whining here "but they never taught me how to do this" which is completely NOT TRUE) or we can grow up and act like adults (well the dates on our birth certificates imply that we should have reached adulthood by now) and fix it.

So here's the plan....

• Sell the toys (thank you Dave Ramsey) including but not limited to campers, motor homes, motorcycles, quads, trailers, speakers, tvs, etc.
• Pay off debt using the money from the sell of toys
• Reserve $2,000 for emergency funds
• Handle mail ONCE. Now this one is sort of tricky. Remember how I said I don't like to open mail. Apparently I prefer to have months and months of envelopes stashed all over my house and then twice a year see if my brain has remembered all our financial obligations. Totally lame, I know. So I'm still looking for a solution for this one. Suggestions welcome.
• Create a budget. I'm really liking the one featured on A Bowl Full of Lemons
  

But I'm also considering using an online system like Mvelopes. Evernote also has some good options. Now to decide...

I guess the final thing to all the "get out of debt" mumbo jumbo is to just DO IT. Consistent actions on a regular basis is the key to success. I know this. Now I am going to do it. Wish me luck!! :)