Holy Traffic Surge Batman! – The Consumerist

So this afternoon I received a note from my web hosting company announcing that a surge in traffic caused server problems and they disabled my blog. Surely they must be mistaken for this is simply a little blog with maybe 100 page views a day. Imagine my surprise when I load up my Google Analytics account and discover over 1,000 page views! It turns out that Ben Popken with The Consumerist linked to my BS2 update: Halfway To Paying Off $70,000 in Debt.

Thank you Ben for the link and the kudos on our progress. I love reading posts but I *really* love reading the comments. I’m thick-skinned so it takes a lot to get to me but I did want to address some of the comments in this post.

A $10,000 Air Conditioner
Yes we put in a $10k air conditioner in February because as another commenter said it was better than a $12k air conditioner in June. I have a son with epilepsy and we’d sunk several thousand dollars into our air conditioner over the previous few summers and knew ours was on its last leg. We didn’t want to risk it going out again because of my son’s health concerns and so we chose to proactively put one in. For the commenter that thinks we live in an $800k massive house I don’t mean to disappoint but we live in a 2000 square-foot house that has a market value of $180,000. My brother-in-law is in HVAC and the price we paid for our air conditioner/heat pump (so it handles our heating as well) is fair market value for its size and SEER rating.

Boring Writer
Kate said “I’m glad she’s getting out of debt, but I’m supremely bored with her writing.” Sorry you’re bored with my writing Kate. You’re right, I’m not explaining about what I’m cutting and what debt snowballing is and I’m obviously missing a key ingredient in the blog, what WE are doing and not just what Dave Ramsey says. Thanks for making that comment, now I know one way to improve my blog!

Our Background
Both of us grew up in low to low-middle income households. This consumer debt is partially from over spending on silly things because we could “afford the payments” and partially from putting medical and therapy bills on credit cards. I have two special needs kids and I went into crisis mode after their diagnosis and tried everything under the sun to help them, regardless of my ability to pay. Stupid tax, with zeroes on the end, and now we’re focusing on what we can afford and not what payments we can afford.

Our Careers
My husband is in information technology and has worked in the industry for closing in on 20 years. I’m a freelance writer…yes this is funny, especially considering the fact that my writing was boring to Kate, but I started a freelance writing business nearly four years ago and do it part-time to this day. Obviously my husband makes the lion’s share of our income but I do earn $2k – $3k/month and my expenses are low. I keep dreaming about expanding it to full-time but I don’t know where I’ll fit in the extra time to work. I do know that I need to find the time to put an “about me” page on the blog, though, thanks phobos512!

The Blog Name
I chose the name Six Figures and Broke based on the fact that Dave Ramsey will call people like me, those that have a six figure household income and a mountain of consumer debt, broke. The phrase is used as a figure of speech and not an exact description of our financial situation.

Again thanks to Ben Popken for the link love and for everyone that responded to his post with your candid comments. I love hearing feedback, whether positive or negative, because without it I can’t grow as a person or as a blogger.

Tagged as: The Consumerist