Our Debt Thermometer

On our quest for Financial Peace, I decided we needed a visual aid.  A way to demonstrate how far we've come, and how much longer we have to go.  We use TMMO as our budgeting software, but I wanted MORE.

I looked around a bit, and saw a GENIUS idea.  Then, I fiddled with it a bit to make it work for us.

First things first.

 Once we crunched the numbers on our debts (since starting TMMO 10/10) we developed a scale for the thermometer.  We had to figure out how many hatch marks we needed for the thermometer.  I want to be able to fill in the red every month, as we get closer to our goal.  But, we also added benchmarks, each individual debt total is on the right side of the thermometer.  It took us awhile to figure it out.  At one point, I said, "We have four college degrees between the two of us - why is this so hard!?"

This is why I needed my husband's A-Type personality to do the job!  I was told to cut the poster board... and let's just say...he took over after that.

Using a Richard Scarry board book instead of a ruler? Check!

Of course, he needed to hydrate properly during this ordeal.

It's going to be a long road, but a worthy one!

Uh oh... maybe we hydrated too much.

See that red?  That's our hard work since last October, we're really hoping to add several more notches by the end of this year.  Piece of cake!  Right?