I just started reading a couple of awesome blogs, Blogging Away Debt, and Pants in a Can. The Latter I like because of the awesome name and awesome advice

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Both blogs have great advice about reducing debt and living frugally. I remember two years ago I picked up this book called ‘The Millionaire Next Door’, and SWORE by it. I still follow the advice from that book, especially concerning buying cars, managing debt, and building wealth instead of trying to become “rich”.

No one wants to be rich. No really, if they say they want to be rich, it’s because they don’t understand what it means. Being rich means keeping your debt to income ratio as high as possible, buying boats, RVs, new cars, big houses, etc just to flash your social status and be “rich”.

Building wealth is the way to go. Investing in stocks.. well maybe not stocks right now, but bonds, precious metals, foreign currencies, land and tangible property, and of course having a mass of liquidable ( is that a word? ) assets. A liquid asset is one that you can take with little or no headaches, and convert it into spendable cash.

One thing I really like about both of those blogs above is that they aren’t afraid to put up their financial health for all to see. Both sites use NetworthIQ to track their net worth, and both have savings and debt-reduction goals with hard numbers attached.

Putting your debt reduction plan and numbers out in the public helps make you responsible to an audience. Having your debt written down on a pad somewhere and then filed away makes it easier for you to forget about the goal. Posting it up on your public blog helps get others involved in egging you on and scrutinizing if your debt suddenly increases.

While I’m not comfortable posting my net worth and/or salary publicly, I don’t have a problem with making my debt goals public. My household ( Christy included ) currently has $3800 in debt, with about 50% of that being interest bearing debt. I was debt free for about a month, but I had forgotten to include my student loan, and we used the credit cards to get plane tickets and the rental car for our trip to California.

I pay a fixed amount towards the debt each month that amounts to $1,057. That will drop to $200 on October 1st once the credit cards are back to a $0 balance.

I’ll try to get a nice graph up on the sidebar soon, and then you guys can yell at me when I don’t make my goals