Bills, Bills, Bills

Remember that 3 week hospital stay that I had? And how I was whisked away in a helicopter to Louisville? You don't?

Well, I remember! It's hard to forget when the bills come piling in. Anyone want to venture a guess as to the cost of my whole stay and transport? Well, I won't reveal it all here, but in case you're curious, the helicopter transport ALONE was $45,000. Thankfully we had decent adequate private insurance (preacher's usually have to find and buy their own private insurance, which also costs.... you guessed it ... alot!) that covered about 75% of our total cost ('copter and hospital). Combine that will generous 'rents and we were left with just a fraction of what the total bill was. We are so blessed to not be under the giant mountain that we would have been without that help!

Tuesday morning, though, I woke up around 6 am thinking about the bills. I just couldn't get them out of my mind. I was making little payments here and there that seemed to not amount to much. So, I thought to myself, "Self, what would Dave do?"

Dave = Dave Ramsey. Financial guru extraordinaire, who dishes out advice your grandmother would give, except he keeps his teeth in.

Dave would pay off the bills from smallest to largest. (As outlined in baby step #2 -- the "debt snowball").

With my new found zeal for getting those bills off of my mind, I hopped on the phone and started taking care of things. I'm super happy to say that we only have three left (obviously the largest), and it's my *plan* that we can have those paid off by the beginning of 2013. It will be beyond great to have no debt again!

(For more info on Dave, visit www.daveramsey.com.)