debt free quest

so in our quest to become debt free we are working on getting my car completely paid off. I don't owe a payment until March of 2009 but I keep plugging away sending money every single payday (every week) even if it is only $25.

Even though our mortgage is a debt, we are not planning on pay that off anytime soon but when the car is paid off I hope to start sending some extra money to that debt every month. My major goal once the car is paid off however is to start putting a big chunk of money in savings so when the time comes that Hubby or I need a different vehicle we can pay CASH or mostly cash and only finance a small amount. I would like to have 6 months to a year of our annual income in savings at some point. We are working on that. Right now we have a couple months worth and that is good but I would like a better cushion.

Couponing, watching sales, stockpiling and using the variety of other resources that I have available are helping to cut down the "flexible" bills, so I can put more of the money that I generally would budget for them to paying down our debt.

Some of my other resources are the Amish store. This wonderful woman that runs it, buys dented and close to date products at a big discount and resells them. I used to shop there a lot but haven't had the time lately but my stockpile is rather large so I don't need to visit her as often anymore. I used to get all of our canned veggies, soups, etc there because they are cheaper and all name brand for less than what I would pay for the generic brand in the regular store. With all the nasty weather we had in the summer, alot of the store were donating their products that would normally go to the Amish store, to food pantries. Since then, it has been a lot harder to get the deals there and like everywhere else, she has had to raise prices.

Another resource is the non-Amish bent and dent. Same concept as above but way bigger and they even have fresh meat but it is almost 1/2 drive for me and not really worth it to just go when my stockpile is large enough as it is. Once my stockpile goes down some, I might make the trip again but until then I make do with what we have here. One thing at Bent and Dent type stores is that you really have to watch the dates on products. I would rather not have to check the date on every single thing I want to buy so I generally only go for huge amounts of canned stuff and would rather use my coupons and get longer dated stuff from the regular stores.