I have gotten many responses to our idea of minimizing my contributions to my 401K and thought I would input some of our thoughts and expectations with doing this. As of today, I did go ahead an lower my contributions to 1%. This will free up approximately $230/mo. of which we will set up our emergency fund. When that fund hits $1,000, we will use the additional funds to service credit card debt and a vehicle loan.

I know this is not what you are supposed to do but at our age we think we will be able to make up for lost time. We are currently 32 years old so we are a long time out for retirement. My 401K has been generously contributed to for the last 5 1/2 years with myself contributing 6% with a 6% employer match, so we do have a significant balance on account as of today.

We are currently going to keep our HD. But we will look at that again next month.

As we committed to starting our jouney toward financial peace we had no idea what to expect. We listened to our first CD which talked about the need to put away $1,000 for an emergency fund. This posed a problem due to the fact that one we pay our monthly bills, we never had excess to put into any kind of fund. Then in further discussion we found many expenses we could or would need to dispose of. Giving up some of our most prised conveniences could pose a problem in the very early stages or our journey. Our DVR and HD channels will be very difficult to part with. Then we discussed different ways we can start pocketing more money out of our income. minimizing the amount I contribute into my 401K goes against everything I was ever taught in personal finance. Reducing this contribution to 1% would give us an additional $230/mo. These funds will be directly deposited into our savings to establish our emergency fund. This may be our first significant move to start the process. In addition to the saving, we will also be limiting our cahs output as much as possible. I just got back from the store to pick up some Pepsi and came back with RC cola b/c it was $1.30 cheaper. Yea, my attitude may be changing. One small step.

I would love suggestions or encouragment because the changes that will hit our family in the next couple of weeks will be significant.