Back when I was in high school I thought my best friend in the world, Sally, would be my best friend in the world forever.  We were inseparable.  We were either together in person, together on the phone or writing each other notes and letters.  I can only imagine if we were teenagers today that we would have been texting each other constantly.  I loved high school and it was mainly because of her and my other friends- we had so much fun together.

I actually did not love summer vacation because we didn’t get to spend as much time together.  We still talked on the phone quite frequently and wrote each other lots of letters.  Every few days I was sending her a letter’s, and she was doing the same.  I still have a lot of those letters today and it’s fun to get them out from time to time and read them and reminisce.  I wonder if other people do this as well, I wonder if Sally does.

Did you know that 43% of American families spend more money than they earn each year?  That just boggles my mind.  How can people be putting more money out than they are bringing?  Don’t they realize it is going to catch up to them? 

Did you know that the average household has around $8,000 in credit card debt?  That doesn’t even include car loans or student loans or medical bills.  That also boggles my mind.  How will people ever get ahead of their bills when they keep spending and borrowing?

I know at one time we did get ourselves into a little trouble with our credit cards.  It was when I was in college- and you know how credit card companies love to send college students all sorts of credit card offers?  Well- that’s what they did to me and I used them.  But you know what- I stopped and learned my lesson before it got serious.  I paid everything off.  Since then I have never had a credit card bill that was not paid in full each month.

Do you know what I worry about?  Well, I tend to worry about everything.  But, one of the many things I worry about include losing my files and information from my computer.  I know how to back up all of my pictures of Peanut- so I have special CD’s with pictures on them.  I have George back up lots of my information for me just in case… because you just never know. Am I the only one that worries about losing my pictures, I don’t think so.

I was taught good habits with my money from a young age.  You get paid and 10% or your money goes to church and 10% goes into savings.  The rest of your money you use for your needs and if there is anything left over, your wants.  I did very well with my money too.  I always had money set aside in my savings account and was always able to pay all of my bills in full.

George did not learn the same good habits and brought a lot of debt with him when we met.  I got into some bad habits of buying a bunch of stuff on credit cards that I couldn’t pay for.  And before I knew it we had a whole lot of debt.  It was time for us to get serious about our money.

For the most part I took care of all of our debt.  I put us on a strict budget and got all of our debt paid off in a couple of years.  Now we have a nice amount of money set aside in our savings account.  And if we can’t afford something- we don’t buy it.