What is the best amount to have in savings? $1,000? 3 months worth of expenses? More? Less? I've heard so many different things.

Does anyone do cash? Thoughts on keeping savings at home? Or half and half?

How do you stay motivated? I'm so far from having this all paid off, so that doesn't seem to motivate me.

Well, we had to unexpectedly put one of our dogs to sleep. He had congestive heart failure and took a turn for the worst. He was suffering and it was what we had to do. It cost $135. I'm so sad. Hoping time makes it hurt a little less.

I have to have an MRI (on my brain). I'm nervous. Financially its ok because I have already met my deductible from my ankle injury. But my mind is swimmy as I type this.
Prayers and positive thoughts are appreciated.

Ugh. It is just a lot.

Timeline on some of the debt:
Wells Fargo - They offered a settlement. They will take $400 some odd dollars and allow us to pay $79.58/ month. So we could pay that off in about 6 months.

Car Loan = 14 months
Loan = 17 months
Care Credit = 12 months

On our mortgage, that is our mortgage, insurance, and taxes. Its at 4% interest.

I had to take some money from our savings to finish paying our taxes. Its down to $426

Other budget issues:
I haven't found a cheaper cell phone plan yet. I talked to a couple of other providers and it only changed about $20. I am not sure if $20 is worth changing for.

We only have 2 internet providers in our area and the other one is satellite. Our neighbors have not had much luck with it so we have stuck with the other provider. There are only 2 plans. We have the cheapest that is $66.48 and then the rest is taxes and fees so its $95-$99 a month.

I saw someone talk about doing a food inventory, so I am going to try that. Maybe I can see how many meals I can make out of that and stretch the budget.

With me recovering from my surgery/injury I can't really work a second job. I'm still not driving. So maybe I can find something I can do from home.

Hi! I'm Raquel. I'm feeling a little vulnerable. I stumbled across this site, gathered all my information, tried to settle my nausea, and hit update. I finally got my head out of the sand a few weeks ago. Unfortunately we got a rude awakening when we received court documents regarding a debt. What a sinking feeling. I thought to myself, I better do something about this before I get 10 more. So, I put all of our debt on here. As of last week, we have payments set up on all of these except 2. The one with the court hearing and the personal loan that we have not been asked to pay on.

My work requires that I contribute to retirement. (403b) We are required to contribute at least 2% and they put in 5%. I do the minimum 2%. And we have $604 in savings as of recently. We wanted to build up an emergency fund.

Can't wait to read everyone's stories and learn some new things.