Yesterday, I had my 4th PRG with Amos and Hal. It was suggested that I break out the house payment from the solar debt and that became obvious as we were studying the numbers.
I learned that my total take home pay minus total expenses each month leaves me with an average of $50 left over. However, it was pointed out that that is quite low. We are contributing extra money each month to pay down our house bill which is showing up in ‘expenses’ and that is not quite accurate. Meagan and I started contributing $500 to Maddie’s college fund and so that was listed in the spending plan instead of being shown as an additional payment made. Also, the Take Home Pay number is not showing any of Meagan’s net income from her wedding business.
Paying down the debts is peace inducing. You know that that number is just going to be going down from there. Paying is not a big deal, it is a surcharge for the peace that I have today.
Paying the debts sets off a spree of getting away from being victimized.
In DA, we take each debt as a percentage of the whole amount. For example, $121,995 = 46.56% of $262,015. Then we figure out how much a month I have left over at the end of the month from my spending plan. That extra money, once I have paid my expenses can go towards the amount to pay. In the example above, if I had $500 each month to pay toward my debt, then would take the % of the total * $500 and each cell shows how much money each debt shall receive. Yes, some places might get a $2.00 check…but I bet they cash it!
Amos said that when he first came into this program, he saw himself as his debt. He saw his debt as a defect. One nice way of paying the debt this way is that it is addressing everyone! None of them should go after you if you are paying down the debts each month, even if it is a small amount. They will look at the giant list of people who owe them money and they will go after the person who is not responding, the person who is not paying anything…not the person paying $2.98 each month.
They recommended that I bookend with folks in the program before and after making the call to creditors to get clear on the exact amount owed and to tell them that I will be mailing them a check.
Hal made a point that all of this spreadsheet is one piece. The income, the spending, the debt, the savings…all of it is one big happy piece. We don’t need to think of the debt as bad and the income as good…it is all apart of your journey and all one piece whole piece.
Amos noticed that I cheered up when talking about my dad and being on a payment plan with him as opposed to the others where they are still vague and outstanding.
In the big book, this is the one line that has made me money. “Difference in a demand and a simple request is plain to anyone.”
