THANK YOU !

Messenger, that's a wonderful article. I want to address something it said in the part about earning extra money. Perhaps my daughter's experience will encourage others to look into this:

The article mentioned looking into "O Desk" for earning money. My daughter, Amy, started working with O desk about 3 years ago. She was an English major in college, and began ( with O desk ) editing and sometimes writing pamphlets that would eventually be published on the internet. Her clients ranged from L L Bean to professionals in Korea. Her initial job was to just check grammar, etc, and determine whether the writing was good enough to be published. I remember her saying she had to send back a lot of Korean material because the English was so poor.

Fast forward to the present. She has gone from editing to free lance writing , still under the umbrella of O desk. Now she researches different subjects ( she laughingly told me she knows Everything about varicose veins) , and then writes about them for the client . She has about 5 regular clients, and mentioned last week that "they seem to be happy, even though I have raised my rates".
Amy and Matthew ( her husband) hope to have a child soon. Amy is planning on still writing after said child arrives. ( "He/she has to sleep sometime- I can write then ") . Of course she plans to cut some of her hours, but will cross that bridge (she has already informed her clients of this) when things happen.
Very long story short, Amy has had great results with O desk . She said if you know how to really use a computer, and have a skill that can be used ( and there are a multitude of skills needed ) , O desk is wonderful.
Perhaps someone here has a skill and can investigate O desk. You have a favorable testimony from Amy!

thanks messenger....I have been whacking away a long time and making some progress...three steps forward two steps back as the saying goes....

That's a great article Messenger. Thank you!

I found that problems 1 and 2 were always my issues. I had budgets -- but they weren't realistic. I knew where I thought I should be spending my money. Things improved when I started tracking where I really was spending it and figured out where I was overspending and could cut back.

For me, there's a step six. Don't get IN to debt. Sounds simple I know ;-) A big step for me has been to constantly remember that emergencies happen and if I don't have $$ set aside I'll be back in debt to cover those emergencies. Savings has to be part of my spending plan.

Again, thanks for the great article link.

I do agree with Step Six - stay out of debt...

My worst one was number four. I found it very hard to stay motivated. I would pay off a bill and never really got to enjoy it. It seemed like as soon as one got paid off... three more would want payment right away.

More then once I just wanted to quit and give up, thinking "what's the use?"

It is by far the hardest part of getting out of debt (IMO) staying motivated...

Oh boy... let's see... first post... a name of "DebtGuru101"... then send us to a paid debt service...

If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck... then it must be spam...

LoL Messenger but yes he is somewhat advertising and that is against the rules of the road at DS....I will report it to a CL I know and see what they do....