An Alarming Look At Our 2007 Spending

I decided just over a month ago to turn our finances around, get out of debt, and start saving for the future. In the long run, changing the way we manage our finances will secure a comfortable future - home ownership, capacity to handle emergencies, and ultimately retirement. In the short-term, so short that it is already starting to happen on the smallest scale, we will have more money for the things that are important to us by prioritizing our spending and applying a little common sense to our budget.

Part of the process to turn our finances around has been carefully analyzing our spending. Luckily, I used Quicken all year and have been vigilant about entering and categorizing every expense. I've been pulling reports from Quicken this month to figure out where our money goes, and it is definitely alarming.

The winner of the unnecessary and wasteful spending is ...

Finance Charges - $2,676.81 - This is the category that we are actively reducing. Carrying $43,000 in various forms of credit adds up quickly. One of our financial priorities is to eliminate debt - and fast.

With the money we paid out in finance charges this year, I could have bought the following items from my Wishlist:

4 Gateway T2080 Dual-Core 1.73GHz 15" Widescreen Laptops ($600 ea)

1 Sony Bravia KDL-46XBR2 46" 1080p Widescreen LCD HDTV ($2000)

5 Envision 32" LCD HDTVs ($500 ea)

17 Harmony 880 Universal Remotes ($145 ea)

Or ...

I could have purchased a Gateway T2080 Laptop ($600), an Envision 42" LCD HDTV ($700), and a Harmony 880 Remote ($145) and still had $1,155 left in savings.

Yet another addition for the long list of reasons to dig out of debt.

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