How did I get here?

I am a 30 year old stay at home mom, married twice and divorced once. I have a mortgage, car payment, credit card payments, until recently a gym membership and, of course, marriage counseling. Every week I get pissed off that I might have a $100 to last the week or until my husband's next pay check. My husband, Sexy Manboy, works hard and almost always puts in a 60+ work week. So how on Earth did we manage to get to this financial situation? Seriously. I got irritated with the balances with our checking account and happened to come across a blog that stated they had used Dave Ramsey's Baby Steps to get out of debt and start saving for college and retirement. I was intrigued, so like a good consumer I started looking on amazon for his books. Then I thought "well shit, i'm already broke. Should I really be spending money to find out how to get out of debt?" I drug my broke ass to the public library. I got the "Total Money Makeover" by Dave Ramsey and about 1/2 way through I was ready to shave my head and drink the Kool-Aid.

He looks like a nice trustworthy guy :)
http://www.daveramsey.com/home/

Forced to actually look at our financial status made me realize we are easily $11k in debt just with credit cards. WHAT THE FUCK?! How did we do that? Hadn't we paid them off? Aren't we making bigger payments? nope. We pay the minimum payments every month, no more no less. We don't even go around buying expensive shit.
Here's how we did it: I decided that I was going to start selling sex toys. So I got started in a direct sales company, purchased the kit on my credit card and started charging business supplies. Car magnets, a HUGE window decal complete with my phone number and website. Then I decided that my parties weren't successful because I didn't have the stock available the same night, c'mon no one wants to wait for their Bangin' Butterfly?! Soooo I charged that shit too. Before I knew it I had a $7900 (and some change) credit card balance. FUCK. That is a scary damn number. I'm also an active member of a mommy's group in my town, of course this means spending quality time with my kid and spending quality dollars on lunches, bounce houses, bowling, mom's nights in/out, baked goods, toys and whatever the else we think we need or want at the time.


There you have it folks, I am a spender. I have read the book and have convinced Sexy Manboy to cooperate and get our money back on track. I even purchased "Financial Peace: Revisited" in case I need a refresher of the steps or to be reminded that I'm doing this because I have no control over myself with a credit card. I am hoping to keep this blog as a motivator and maybe it will motivate others, or at least give you all a big fucking laugh when I am plugging away at my credit card debt and I'm dying to go to In-n-Out. My goal is to have the credit cards paid off in 12-18 months. Currently, We have $596 towards our $1k emergency fund. My biggest obstacle is trying to figure out a budget. I don't know how to write a budget. How did I get to 30 and never wrote a budget??? Really? I wanted to blame the parents for this but lets face it they told me not to use the credit cards, start a savings account and they have always lived within their means. They set example and I ignored it. Good Job, Claire.