I have finally made the decision to go ahead an pay myself first. I was already putting 5% of my pre-tax earnings into the 401k and putting another $50 per week into my kids 529 account so what is another $10 per week? I went ahead and opened an ING Direct Orange Saving Account with an initial deposit of $25. I immediately made a 100% return on investment because ING gave me a $25 bonus for signing up! Now what I should really do is take my original $25 out and just let the free money work its magic. That's acutally not a bad idea now that I think of it. Maybe I will open another ING account under my wife and get another $25 bonus! Then I will deposit $10 per week automatically into one of our accounts and watch it grow!

I have just applied for a 0% intro rate Visa card. This card would give me a 0% interest rate for approx. 6 monts. Let's say I get approved for a $5000 credit line and transfer $5000 right away with no fees attached to the transfer. I did request the entire $15k to be transferred. This would leave me with approx. $10k left on another credit card. I am thinking of only paying the minimum amount on the 0% card and attacking the other card as fast as I can to reduce the amount of interest being accrued. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

In researching the best way to eliminate all of my debt I came across a book titled the Automatic Millionaire by David Bach. It took me about two hours to read through this little gem over two days. This is a trick that I learned from an old friend. Instead of purchasing books, I just go to the local Barnes & Nobles or Borders and read during my lunch break. Now the money that I would've spent on this book will be put towards my outstanding debt.

A recurring theme in many of the books I have read, including the Rich Dad series, is that you should pay yourself first and invest that money for the future. Now I am struggling with wether or not to do this. After thinking about it for a while, I realized that I already do pay myself fist by contributing to the company 401K plan at work. Now I only contribute 5% a week but it is better than nothing. The big question with paying yourself first is this...

Are you getting a better return on your investments than the bank is getting on you? If your investments are giving you a 5% return and your credit cards are costing you 7%, wouldn't it be better to take as much money as you could possilbly scrape up and pay off those credit card bills as quickly as you can? You are actually losing 2% by paying yourself first!

Some experts may try to shoot this theory down but I can't see how. There are ways to cut your credit card interest rates so that they are less than that of your investments. For example, you can play the 0% credit card game. This is a tough game that I have lost in the past. I will attempt to get it going again once I feel comfortable enough about doing so. There are some good articles on www.debtsmart.com regarding this method.

I am not sure what to do about this. I am in a quandry (I love using that word! I don't really care if it is used incorrectly!) My gut says to stop contributing to the 401k and start hitting the credit card debt hard. This, however, goes against everything that I have been taught. Save, save, save, save! What to do? What to do?

After much though, I have come up with a plan to start paying off the credit cards. I have just finished transferring all credit card debt onto one credit card that carries a 5.99% APR for life. This beats the 12-18% that I would be paying if I left it where it was! I plan to play around with those infamous 0% offers in the future. Right now I am just trying to get started. I am happy with the 5.99% rate for now and my happiness is all that counts right now.

Thanks to my father I have always used a weekly budget so I already know how much I can afford to pay towards my credit card bills. (I will post about this budget in more detail at a later time.) I will just combine the amount that I was paying each month to all three cards and put that total towards the new card. I will also be adding the following extra money each month towards the credit card debt:

I used to round up my mortgage, car payment & student loans to the nearest $100. That equates to approx. $100 per month. Instead of paying this extra to the mortgage, I will pay it to the credit card company. This extra payment will significantly decrease the principal over the life of the debt. I am not real good with those calculations, but it can't hurt!
Believe it or not, I am very excited to do the bills this week! I cannot wait to get started. I can envision it in my head. I just hope it all works out in the end!

Why would I be so stupid! I have just signed up to have my cable, phone, internet & cell phone bills paid automatically to my Amex card! I thought I was supposed to decrease my credit card debt. Well, it is one of those reward cards. A Costco reward card to be exact. I will be earning Costco cash that will be redeemable in February of March. I have enough faith in myself to pay off the Amex bill at the end of each month (the Costco Amex allows you to carry a balance). I will just take the amex card out of my wallet so I don't use it by "mistake". I know that I am taking a chance on digging myself an even larger hole but I am willing to take that chance for an extra $100 in Costco cash!

My debt consists of the following:

Credit Cards
Student Loans
Car Payment

I am not listing items such as utilities, insurnace, telephone, cable, groceries. These are recurring debts that are taken care of in full on a monthly basis. In an effort to become debt free, I will, of course, attempt to lessen the strain that these bills have on my wallet. My plan is a simple one:

Pay off the credit cards
Pay off the car payment
Pay off the student loan

How I go about doing this is a different story. There are plenty of people out there that are willing to give advice. Now if I can just figure out whose advice will work for my situation.