It begins

This blog is going to be about getting out of debt, and what we are doing to accomplish this.

In April 2008, I read Dave Ramsey's book "Total Money Makeover". This inspired me to GET OUT OF DEBT!! We have 223K worth of debt, including 2 mortgages. 89K of this is in various credit cards, car loans, and other debts.

Who is Dave? check out www.daveramsey.com
Dave has has a daily talk radio show, and daily TV show, which is aired on Fox Business Network.
Dave advocates a seven step program. You can read about the 7 steps on his website, so I won't repeat them here. He does come into some criticism because his method of paying off debts consists of paying them from smallest to largest, regardless of interest rate. The idea behind this is that early payoffs will inspire you to keep going, and give you more to pay towards the next debt. By using the payment from the first debt you just paid off, and the mininium payment from the current debt, you pay off the current debt faster. You keep repeating this, adding the previous payments you've been making on previous debt to the current debt. This is called the debt snowball, cause as it rolls along, the payments get bigger and bigger. Your remaining debts stay at minium payments until you get to them in the debt snowball.
Really simple, ok?

This is called Baby Step 2, and I'd say its at the heart of this program.

If I had to pay off my largest debt (24K on a CC), I know I'd drop out after a few months and go back to my bad spending habits.

BTW, you don't need to buy ANYTHING from Dave to follow his program. You can find his book at your local library (but don't be surprised if there's a waiting list), and follow his baby steps.