My wife and I actually spend less than we make, but we have a negative cash flow, if that makes any sense.

In other words, our large debt payments increase our net worth each month, but we actually write checks for more money than we make each month.

We are starting our own “turnaround” and your story is really an inspiriation. I have thought about cashing in an old Roth IRA to pay off one of my debts, which would push us into positive cash flow.

I mention the no kids issue because it gives a sense of just how much discretinary time and income they have. All three couples are kind, generous, health-focused, generous, and wonderful friends to me. But I can’t help but be embarrassed at where I am compared to them.

Oh well. Onward!

My wife does not work, yet. But she is planning on starting to work later this year, but her expected income will be around $20K per year once she gets established. If we have kids, we don’t anticipate her working, which probably makes sense due to her low expected salary and the high cost of day care services.

It took several techniqes to get this debt paid off and increase my assets, some of them not conventional. After my first year of work, I recieved a $10,000 bonus (about $7K after taxes). It was an incentive for new employees to stay on for a whole year and wasn’t recurring. The other thing that helped is that I went to the Middle East for a few months during my 2nd year of work. That gave me approximately an extra $20K alone – which helped me pay off all off the rest of my credit card debt and make a downpayment on my house. I started an ebay business which brings in $300 per month.

Yes, but I know what you mean that married couples really have an advantage financially sharing expenses with 2 salaries. It didn’t work out in my case since my wife will be low salary though, but I can imagine for example a professional engineer and a registered nurse married would in the $130K range or so.

Does your wife have an income also?

Since 2004, my income has fluctuated between $40,000 and $60,000 per year (I am self-employed)

I cannot seem to make any headway on my debt. I feel very discouraged.

Sometimes I envy my married friends for the second paycheck. I see the amazing leaps ahead people CAN have (not always of course) when they are working in unity, throwing two paychecks at debt and investing.

Thanks for the post, Ryan.

Now I have $80K in retirment savings, a 3 month emergency fund, no credit card debt, $12K left on the student loan (which I can pay off at any time, but keep it due to very low interest), and 40% equity in a $220K house, 2 decent cars, married, $65K/year job, $6K on a home improvement loan, $6K loan on one of the cars.

What is very exciting is that I see only 4 years from now having $150K+ in retirment savings, a 6 month emergency fund, a secondary savings fund for big purchases, still no credit card debt, $105K/year income, more equity and in a $400K house after the move, no student loans, 2 decent cars with no loans, no home improvement loan left, married with children.

Having gone from a two income to one income household we really need to evaluate our spending habits as we make the transition.

Personally as a pfblogger, I find it really hard to write about my recent (since I started blogging) failures in managing my money, and everyone else I’ve spoken to says the same thing. I’m sure Trent is no different. For me, it’s not so much about not setting a poor example as being annoyed that you couldn’t take your own advice.

If I might offer two pieces of criticism of your blog, it’s that you often don’t talk about:

1) Poor financial decisions you’ve made since your financial turn around unless they’re relatively minor (buying a Wii game, for example). As mentioned previously, I never saw a discussion about cashing out your retirement to pay off debt. That’s certainly a contentious decision and warrants a post of your own. I noticed a 3rd person, hypothetical post on the issue, but this seems like a cop-out, pushing your decisions off on a straw man.

2) If you stop following your own advice, most of the time we never see any follow up on it. Are you still following volumetrics, for example? If not, why not?

Part of the interest in reading a PF blog are they are real people dealing with concrete decisions every day, not setting up a mathematical model for personal finance.

Only hearing about successes sets the reader up for failure. You may think you don’t want to set a poor example for your readers, which is understandable, but I think the real effect is readers saying “Why can’t I pull out of my financial nose dive as smoothly as Trent did? This is really just too hard.”

Seeing those bumps in the road, *especially* the big ones, and seeing another human pull through it intact though not unscathed makes us realize we can do it too.

IMO, this should be Chapter 1 in your (first) book.

Best Wishes,
D4L

I have about the same background of earning well and spending unwisely, except that I never got to a level like you have described. I was going downhill financially and slowly spending away the previously stashed away savings.

Luckily I managed to come to my senses before a complete meltdown. And I must thank The Simple Dollar and some other fine pf blogs for this transformation.

I swear I am not craving tuna, it was just the smallest can I could think of. :)