What the hell happened in November?

Holy moses. November. We belatedly printed out our Quicken breakdown for November, and it's simply obscene. Over $300 in dining out? Can't process this right now. I'm breaking out a bottle of red wine and turing on "Cops" and will mull this over in the morning. Big changes ahead.

Shopping Mall Nightmare

Since we're starting our Year of Bizarro World Limited Spending on January 1st, we decided to run to the mall last night for some last minute spending. Our excuse was that we had to exchange a shirt, but as traffic was bad, we decided to stop off for a bite to eat and then wandered into a Best Buy where we bought a VCR/DVD recorder because our VCR died last week. We were afraid that if we didn't buy it before the first of the year, we wouldn't be able to buy one later. The mall just wore us out and made us see how much useless stuff is being bought and sold as necessary essentials. It made us resolve to avoid them in the upcoming year. Our total spending for last night: $351. Ugh!

A New Year

Well, this is a new experience for me. I've done a little writing, but mostly for a very small audience. This new year is going to be a difficult one for us, mostly because we usually can find any excuse to leave the house to run errands, do a little shopping and stop for a bite to eat (because, of course, it's lunch time and we're nowhere near home). This consumer behavior has got to stop. Oh, we'll still have to run errands, but we're going to try to stop wasting whole afternoons running from store to store looking for that perfect tea cozy. Besides getting financially bizarro, we want to free up that time spent shopping and use it to move our creative endeavors forward. The hardest thing to do is to sit in front of a blank computer screen or canvas, and we usually sabotage each other by enticing invitations to "just run out and grab a bite to eat". This blog is not only to help others who may be trying to get out of debt, it's to keep us honest, because it's really easy to slip up when no one's looking, but another thing when it's being posted for anyone and everyone to see. Enough of my rambling, Basil wouldn't let me go to bed until I posted something (I'm a bit of a procrastinator), so wish us luck with this Bizarro World Debt Elimination Freak Show, and let us know what you're thinking.

Financial Bizzaro World: Year One

Welcome to the Bizarro World Debt Elimination Freakshow. This is the year-long story of two creative-types trying to pay off debt while trying to get kids through college. This is us with our guts out on the table. This is us looking to make a change, and looking to do it in the course of a year, and this is how we're going to do it. We have two primary goals. The first and most important is to pay off approximately $24,700 in debt. The second is to live a life free from fear, especially that cold, numbing special kind of financial fear. We will get into gory details about the debt, we will struggle, we will fight, our will will be shaken. We're not the kind of bloggers that have $25,000 in credit card debt but $147,000 in IRA's and investments or whatnot. There's no security net in our Bizzaro World. We're fighting our way to zero, and from there it's another adventure. The question is, are you in, or are you out? You're out? Hey, no biggie. It's...no, really. It's okay. There's lots of blogs to read, right? But check back. Things are going to get bizarre.