|
| |
|
|
|
 |
|
We're Jon and Jennifer Zeller, and we never thought about details, until we were chosen for this helpful journey! The day we sat down with our CommunityAmerica financial coach we were presented with a new challenge in life. We left our first meeting thinking "okay, we're gonna starve, and we'll be stuck at home for the rest of our lives!" The information was overwhelming. Our debt situation is pretty bad - we have lots of credit cards. We were reminded of the possibility of a job loss and how we couldn't confront that situation with our current path. At first, we had no idea where to start. The first meeting was very intimidating, and we felt a lot of pressure! We had so much put on us that we were lost in what we needed to do. There were lots of suggestions and recommendations, but most of all, it was a reminder about reality. Our thoughts about the meeting started sinking in over the next few days, and we started putting thoughts into action. We have made so many changes to date! We lowered our child's daycare by $100 per month, cut our cell phone and cable expenses, cut our auto insurance by $50 a month, cut our dining down DRAMATICALLY, sold some stuff, started using coupons, and practiced a budget to see what we were really looking at monthly. The budget is truly an eye opener. We also JUST paid off six of our smaller credit cards! What a relief! Though it will take some time to get within a manageable budget, we are learning as we go. We must learn to spend, budget, and save in order to have a manageable lifestyle. So far, we've learned that the reality of our situation is that we really, really need to make some changes - permanent ones! We can't keep living outside of our means, and we must be confident and face the challenge! We are SO motivated!! We're also very proud of our accomplishments to date! We are already much happier and our marriage is also improving! |
 |
| Posted
by Jennifer Zeller, March 22, 2010 at 5:57 PM | Add a Comment |
   ShareThis
|
|
| |
|
|
|
I'm Ryan Meador. And my wife, Laura, got us into this Financial Makeover without me knowing, but for good reason. You see when we were married in the summer of 2006, we had a great wedding, but when we got home and I began school I found out that we owed $30K on credit cards, Citi and Bank of America loved us. We made payments every month, but the balances weren't really moving down. Almost 4 years later, at the end of February, Laura made the last credit card payment. It just so happened that in January she had also made the last car payment on her car. As we move into March the question has become what next?
As we look to make that choice we have several options. Laura is due September 10th with our first child and we need to prepare for that. The interest rate is much lower, but I owe more in student loans than we owed on credit cards. I would like to do more to knock this down, or at least keep it low as I work on another graduate degree. Our house is going to need a coat of paint this summer and we want to add on to the deck. Finally, our savings is not in the condition we would like it, be it for the car, an emergency, retirement, or just general savings. At this point we are going to work on each of these goals with our CommunityAmerica coach by putting more money into savings and ear-marking it for what we need. |
|
| Posted
by Ryan Meador, March 22, 2010 at 5:51 PM | Add a Comment |
|
ShareThis
|
|
| |
| Gwinn 2010 has started out roughly |
|
|
|
Hello, we're Jeff and Stephanie Gwinn. We thought that this was going to be the year that we made the most impact on our finances. We were going to tackle our debt head on and really see a noticeable difference at the end of the year. In January, business became very slow and Jeff’s employer put him on unemployment. Thankfully, it only lasted two weeks, but we felt like we had a set back. We also had our refrigerator go out on us. We had no choice but to buy a new one and we thought, "well this can only get better." We started the year with a little debt and a little less income, but that's ok, we'll move forward. In February we found out that Stephanie’s gall bladder is only functioning at 3%. Our portion of just the test alone cost $229 but we felt that it needed to get removed sooner rather than later. During this time, Jeff’s employer once again was getting very slow and informed Jeff that he would be off for another two weeks of unemployment. This actually did work out alright for the week of the surgery, so that he could be home to help Stephanie. But from a financial stand point, we are both really starting to freak out. We are now in March and with medical bills rolling in and trying to get caught up on having less income, we are still somehow hopeful that this will be our year to soar, and we're anxious to see what kind of advice our CommunityAmerica coach can offer to help throughout the year.
Make it a great week!
|
|
| Posted
by Stephanie Gwinn, March 22, 2010 at 5:42 PM | Add a Comment |
|
ShareThis
|
|
| |
|
|
|
 
We’re Bonnie and Parrish, with our daughter Sparrow. We’ve gotten here through a lengthy process that was started when Bonnie started working less right before Sparrow was born. We had increased expenses and medical bills at the same time our income was reduced. Soon after that, Parrish’s former employer began cutting back overtime, reducing our income still further.
By the time the economic crisis started in late 2008, Parrish’s employer was cutting hours even more. The medical bills were paid, but we found ourselves relying increasingly on credit. By summer 2009 it was out of hand. We managed to consolidate our credit in to one credit line from our bank, but were not making any progress in paying it down.
We had three good things happen to us, however, and things began to turn around. Parrish found a new job that paid much better; his mother moved in with us, helping us support our household, and we got invoved with a Dave Ramsey class. The first two things reversed the downward spiral of our finances and allowed us to get ahead on paying our bills, and the Dave Ramsey program helped us work together as a team to budget, (which we’d never really done before) pay debt, and plan for
the future.
Now we’ve got the chance to work with CommunityAmerica to leverage our new knowledge and our improved budget process. We’re very excited about this, and are planning to have fun and save money this year!
|
|
| Posted
by Parrish Baker, March 22, 2010 at 5:28 PM | Add a Comment |
|
ShareThis
|
|
| |
|
|
|
| |
|
<<Newer Posts
|
|
|
|
|
