Gazelle Intensity and making progress

I'm typing this is green, cuz money is on my mind today.  Not just money - money, debt, my future...

So the phrase that pays today is  "Gazelle Intense".   For the Dave Ramsey fans out there, you might already know what this means.   If not, here's a lil edumacation for you:  Dave Ramsey coined the term "Gazelle Intensity", referring to how a gazelle reacts when being pursued by a cheetah.  It is derived from this Bible passage: Proverbs 6:4-5 – Allow no sleep to your eyes, no slumber to your eyelids. Free yourself, like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the snare of the fowler.
My description of it is it is your financial freedom is the gazelle, the cheetah is debt, life, Murphy, and the pressure to keep up with the Jones'.  Personally, I don't want to keep up with the Jones', I'd rather keep up with the Ramsey's.  My goal is to have a credit score of ZERO, like DR, by 2020. 

Debt is normal, be wierd!

So I wanted to talk about my progress, after only one month of following DR.  First, a lil background:

I started this at the beginning of March.  I had no idea what my expenses were each month.  I had no idea what my bank balance was.  And I had no idea how much debt I had.  None.  To my credit, I did have $2000 in savings.  I don't even know why.  I guess a lil birdie was telling me that I'd need that.  So when I started the DR plan, I had already completed Baby Step 1!   I was able to immediately jump into BS2.  I went thru my bank statements and gathered together all my unpaid bills.  Wow, what an eye-opener that was!  I realized I had $35,000 of debt in back property taxes, student loans, medical bills and collections.  That's not counting my house debt, which with 2 mortgages equals $150,000. 
I called every company to get interest rates and current balances.  Thank God I did that, because the county was getting ready to foreclose on my house in May if I didn't pay off the oldest years' property tax by 5/17!  Thus began the project of budgeting and creating my "debt snowball".   You can watch my progress by clicking the link at the top of the blog.

The amazing women on BabyCenter's "We're Debt Free" board helped me sooo much with this process, so here's a shout-out to you wonderful ladies :).  Since I hadn't done a budget in almost 10 years, I had no clue how to start.  And I don't know how to use a spreadsheet, which is what everyone seems to do these days.  So I found this great website, Budget5000.   It's a free, online spreadsheet program that you can download to Excel or OpenOffice.  I worked and worked at perfecting my budget, making an envelope system, and creating sinking funds for my expenses.  And I created my debt snowball!  While the budget is my bread and butter, this snowball is like my night out on the town.  The high I get from watching my snowball grow and my months to debt free shrink is awesome!

Here's what I've paid off/down so far:

• Old Verizon bill - $120 - paid off!
• Western Psychology - $281 - paid off!$
• Providence Health Systems - $389 - 2 paid off, 2 paid down to one month left!
• Multnomah County Property Tax - $3400 - 2 years paid off and avoiding foreclosure!  $1200 from savings, $1900 from tax refund, the rest was freed up in my budget!
• NCO (Citicard charge-off) - $600 - settled for $1800 on a $3500 bill, and the other $1200 to be paid this month!!
• Northwest Newborn - $100
• Sallie Mae (student loan) - $205

That's a grand total of $5,095  in just one month!!

For the month of April, I will have paid off $1200 more for NCO, and $300 more in medical, $85 in SL, and $500 in property tax.  That will elimate 3 debts from my snowball completely, and pay down 3 more!  My 2 month payoff total will be $7,180!!!! 

O.M.F.G.