From Red to Black: Our money jar success story

by Remy
(Memramcook, New Brunswick)

The money jars made so famous by Gail helped my wife and I get out of debt. Before getting on our cash budget and debt payment plan our situation seemed utterly hopeless, we even considered bankruptcy. We were inspired by seeing couples who had far more debt then we did get on the right track.

Before starting on the money jar system a couple years ago my wife and I owed more than $34,000 in debt. To make matters worse, we could only afford to make minimum payments on all our debts - infact we were getting deeper in the hole every month. We discovered we were overspending by $500 month.

We knew drastic changes were necessary if Gail's system had any chance of working. We down-sized our house and our car, it was hard to do at the time but we both knew it was a critical step.

According to Gail's budget guidelines our reduced mortgage and car payments freed up enough money to be able to allocate 15% of our income towards debt. We also, threw in any additional money like income tax returns and work bonuses to pay down the debts even faster.

Less than two months later we had our first debt burning ceremony! It felt great but we still had a long way to go. We continued on this way, paying off the smallest balances first and emphatically celebrating each paid debt.

Just over two years later...I'm happy to say we are now 100% debt free!

That's why my wife and I are both big fans of Gail Vaz-Oxlade, her show and the money jar system.

Thank you Gail!