Determined to get out of debt!!!

An article caught my eye and I just had to read it. The article was titled, "The Top 5 reasons why your broke." I laughed and thought, okay, why do you think I am broke?  Apparently 76% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. 55% of women and 45% of men do not have at least 3 months worth of emergency savings. In addition to this sad reality these are the answers they gave for why I (and many other people) am broke.
Their answer:
1. Employment and earnings
2. Prices
3. Lifestyle and overspending - 52% of Americans spend more than they earn. Yikes!!!
4. Student Loans
5. Credit and Debt
Okay at this point I have to admit that they got me on 2 of these, but we are improving and moving in a good direction.
Don't despair! All of us can get out of debt and create an emergency savings! I haven't given up and neither should you!

A friend of mine told me the following story. I don't actually know the person involved but it could be anyone really. She said a family determined that they would get out of debt and live debt free. They made radical decisions including hanging their clothes on a clothesline to save on their power bill. (Not such a radical decision for me because we do that). Anyways their neighbors observed their new standard of living and began leaving bags of clothes on their doorstep and giving them other charity because they were worried about how poor they must be if they had to live that way. When the given time came for the family to move they paid for their new home with cash. My friend noted that it is very likely that many of the people who were giving the donations were probably still in debt and feeling sorry for the family unaware of how the sacrifices made by the family gave them the opportunity to be debt free and living out of bondage. 

So feel free to join me on my debt free roller coaster as our family works as hard as we can to become debt free.