journey to understanding personal finance while getting myself out of debt

So this goal has new meaning to me. I have been faithful to not owning any more credit cards and the only other large expense i have is my car. Once these two large things are paid off that money will be able to go to building a savings for me and my daughter. I really want to open a savings for her and at this point, since she won’t have need for it for quite a few years depositing a small amount every month just 5 or 10 dollars will be quite a lot by the time she is old enough to take it over herself.
I intend to really take the time to teach her about finances and the importance of being wise with her money. My parents taught be some but they didn’t really follow through, but i don’t think it was due to the fact that they didn’t know much about it all themselves. I don’t know where i got it (passed to me from somewhere) i have here The Wall Street Journal Guide to Understanding Personal Finance there are quite a few things i already knew but there are smaller details and things i hadn’t considered before.
So here begins my journey to understanding personal finance while getting myself out of debt

but very very thankful at the same time. My dad, being in the situation i am in, has been basically paying my bills for now. i didn’t ask him to he’s just doing it. and i had a group of small credit balances (all under $300) and he just took like a lump sum and paid them all off. In the total of whats due this isn’t alot but it was about half of my credit card debt. what sucks is that i still have over 5,000 left on my car >.< ahh.

sometimes it feels like it will never happen… and that is overwhelming

that is the question

last year, following the advise of my father i joined a debt managment program. It has been fine it makes everything one low payment in a month but looking at the statement it looks like only about half my debts are actually decreasing. so i could stay on and just pay them 3 or 4 times my monthly payment or i could drop out and then pay minimums and systematically eliminate them one by one. i am not really opposed to either idea… but here is the question. part of joining the dmp is that they negotiate a lower apr% and a lower monthly payment in order to fit your budget. (they factor everything by your income, what you need for gas/food/rent, bills not on the dmp etc. and work out how much you can pay) so, coming off the plan the apr’s will be back up, but if i am paying significatly more than the minimum does this even matter?

i don’t know alot about credit and apr’s but it seems like it wouldn’t matter if i was over the minimum. or am i just way off the mark on this one? any suggestions?

so i have devised a plan… because my debts are not bulk to one particular place, but are more a collection of smaller debts i’ve decided that systematically eliminating them would be the best plan. Though i know they tell you that you should work from the largest debt down that would take so much longer than i want.

There are two high debts, one of them being my car that is due to be paid off in 2009. The other a credit card that i won’t tell you how it got like it is because it was a stupid mood but in desperate times you do what you have to when you have to stay afloat. But the reason i want to eliminate the small debts first is because they can pretty well paid off in one or two pay checks, 3 at the most.

i have other plans but none that i care to expose right now, perhaps once they are in action.

aside from needing to get into a normal job that doesn’t include: working from home, working from someone elses home, or delivering things. in short i need to make more money at a job that pays one amount by the hour, period.

but i have started by taking one small step, i entered a debt managment program… basically like a consolidation, they contact the creditors and them to agree that you have entered the program, negotiate a lower interest and minimum… all based on your income and what you can afford. you make one payment to dm company and they pay the creditors. it’s fine so far, thank God my debt isn’t really more than 5,000. haha for me thats alot, i know for others it’s just change. but i also have to finish paying off my car… and pretty soon i will have to start paying off my school loan. this is gonna be a looong road