5/23 Update:I am SO excited that on 5/17 we paid off a LARGE debt that we’d been working on for 3 years.  It was so motivating to pay that off.  In fact, I called them and asked them to send me a confirmation that the debt has been paid in full- just so I can have it to remind us if we ever contemplate pulling out a credit card or taking a loan out!

Has anyone else started a Debt Diet?  I’d love to hear your stories!

*The following is a post I made about a month ago!
I’ve written briefly about my family’s journey towards paying off our debt before. I just wanted to tell you something that may sound funny “I LIKE paying bills now”.

We’ve been a one income family for a long time (going on about 8 years now) and we’ve had many struggles. From major emergencies to travels out of the country (trust me it wasn’t for leisure!) and we racked up some (ok a lot of debt). For years (yes years) we rolled that credit card debt from one 0% interest card to another – each month we were making minimum payments and we’d pay off one here or there…but we really never made any REAL headway. Please don’t think we were out buying luxury items we couldn’t afford- we’ve always been frugal but we made choices to put things on credit cards instead of trying to find other ways to pay for them. We took the easy way out- plastic-and paid for it!

I felt like we were living with our heads in the sand…never really sitting down and adding it all up- adding up the total debt, the total interest charges, the total monthly payments….the total number of years it was going to take to pay it off at minimum payments.

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I LOVE flowers.  Really love them. I love to place vases around my house with a stem or two and sometimes fill an entire vase with them

They are expensive though.  Even a simple bouquet costs $10-$12!  And they don’t last very long.  Instead of paying for fresh cut flowers at the farmers market, florist or grocery store- I grow my own!

One of my favorite flowers is the peony.  They are gorgeous and HUGE.  Instead of spending a lot of money on pre-cut flowers (which honestly last how long- 3-5 days?) I buy live plants and plant them around my house.

A pack of 4 peony bulbs is $24.00 at Home Depot (check out their garden club to get discounts!)  It may take a while to have a garden that supplies color all spring and summer but it is so worth it!   At almost any point during the warm seasons, I can go into the garden and snip beautiful buds to bring them inside!

A few of my favorites are Forsythia (you know those gorgeous yellow bushes in early spring?  They are so easy to grow!  PLUS you can even grow your own from them!  Peony, Lillies, Tulips, and Daffodils.

What are your favorite flowers to grow & cut? (P.S. My thumb is far from green & I grew the flower above!)

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