Three years ago my husband and I listened to The Automatic Millionaire for the first time. We were in our mid 20s and each lead a lifestyle of excessive consuption. Our credit card debt totaled over 17k, we each had student loans, and were making two car payments. At this time, we hadn’t even considered funding our retirement.

Fortunately, that all changed. Though it took us about six months to go from recognizing we had to make a change in our spending habits to actually carrying out the actions required, we finally did it. Since June of 2006, we haven’t used ANY credit cards -in fact- we have paid off all of our 17k in credit card debt! We own one car and plan to own the second by the end of the year. We contribute 15% of our income to Roth IRAs and we recently bought a house. Right now we are on track to have it payed off in 16 years by making an extra payment to the principle each month.

It is absolutely amazing what a simple shift in your mindset can jump start. The best part is that the journey has not been all that difficult-by making a little progress each month, we have come leaps and bounds from where we started!

Thanks for all your insight David!

Sarah Garst