One of the reasons that I started this website was because I needed to hold myself accountable for my spending, and I decided to do it publicly. I started doing this about the time I finished grad school, so all I knew was being a poor student. Even then though, still in my mind was all the stuff I put on a credit card when I was in college and said “I’ll pay for it when I get a sweet, high paying job after I graduate”. Well, it didnt exactly happen that way, so I had to hustle pretty hard to get to where I’m at right now.
I hit my lowest point in december 2009, after the crappy car that I was driving bit the dust (I was hoping it would make it until that spring, while I saved up for a new one. Unfortunately, that did not happen and it died on me (issue with the starter) so I went out and bought a new truck. This pushed my debt level to over 55k, and very little of it was asset backed. I had some credit card debt, and a lot of student loan and car debt. The vehicle was the only thing that I could sell and possibly get my money back (or at least part of it) so I knew I was in deep. I had been working on getting out of debt for a while, but this was my lowest point (I would like to mention that my dollar amount of debt is greater now, but my student loans, car loans and credit card debt are paid off, and the only thing remaining is the mortgage).
I was working hard, so I just kept focused and kept paying off all of my debts, one by one. It took about 5 years, but I was finally out of debt. If you are looking for how I did at the end of each month and year, you can find it all here. These monthly reviews really helped keep me on track, and I encourage you to do them – even if they are just you writing everything out at the end of the month and sharing with no one. They will still help your situation.