Month One Done!

Today is a great day! I feel like we have accomplished so much this past month! We set an actual budget, started using Summit's Climbr^® which is an incredible tool that increased the payments towards our debt and savings just by using and sticking to the budget. One of the interesting things about Project Money is that you can’t really just sell stuff and pay down your debt. Meaning, the contest is based on percentages, so if you sell something and put it towards debt, then it will be counted as income and essentially be a wash percentage-wise. I say this because of course an easy way to pay off debt is just sell things. But, you don’t learn habits to not get back into debt. This has been our technique in the past and although it has worked to get us out of debt, our habits did not change, and right back into debt we went. 

Our goal for Project Money is to create long-lasting financial habits that will set us up for success for years to come. The greatest success this week was realizing using Summit's Climbr we had $538 left over from our variable expenses that we could put right into savings. We decided to put it into our savings versus paying down the debt so we have enough savings built up and don’t go back into debt by borrowing instead of using money we already have. Next week I will explain a little more about what Summit's Climbr actually is….stay tuned!