Getting All Gazelle Intense

I'm sure a lot of you have already read or at least heard about Dave Ramsey's book the Total Money Makeover. Well I finally got around to checking it out at the library and started reading it yesterday. I can't say that the book has taught me anything new or radical but it is a great motivational book. Ramsey talks a lot about "getting gazelle intense" about paying off your debt and saving money and while I think I have been super focused for a while, the book has reaffirmed my craziness and reassured me that it is o.k. to be a little whacky and a little maniacal about getting your finances in order.

So with that in mind I started to think about how else I could speed up the debt elimination process. I decided to finally try to sell some of the books that have been collecting dust or sitting in the garage for some time now. I kept all of the books from my college years and thought perhaps one day they would come in handy so never wanted to get rid of them. Truth is, there is probably only .01% chance that I will ever need or want to read these books again, and if I do I could just go to the library and check them out. So I went through all my books and came up with a total of 37 books that I have put up for sale on half.com. If they all sell I could take in about $275. I predict that a lot of them will probably not sell but money is money and besides that I'll have gotten rid of some unnecessary clutter.

I'm also stepping up my efforts to sell my broken laptop. It is a good laptop that just needs some repair so I am pulling for $300. I also have the cell phone that I won up for sale on ebay and right now the bids are up to $90 and there is still 2 days left on the auction. I am crossing my fingers! If all of my plans pan out, I could get a maximum of $675!

On another note, today is the 3 month anniversary of my blog! So happy birthday to the blog. When I started I was $19,794.23 in the hole. Today I am $15,688.50 in debt so in 3 months I have been able to pay $4,105.73. If I keep it up at this rate I will be out of debt in less than a year!