How I am going to pay off $25000 in 2016

Debt Payoff

So as we close out 2016 I have decided I want to be more aggressive with our debt.  After all we are not getting any younger.  I would like to think very optimistically and say I want to be debt free by the time I am 40, but I do not know how realistic that is.  Right now we are sitting with a debt payoff date of 9/2020.  So to be debt free minus the house isn't bad for the next 4.5 yrs right?  WRONG!  I do not want to still be paying debt off when my 14 yr olds are out of school.  I want to do it before they are out of school.

Right now we are approx $118,000 in debt minus our house and we still have kids to buy cars for. That in and of itself is a scary daunting thought.  And realistically in 4.5 yrs I will no longer NEED mini van as I will only have 3 children left at home and 2 of them will be teens the oldest of them nearing graduation.  I want to be FREE well before then.

So how do I plan to do that?  First I plan to add everything I make doing daycare to debt on a monthly basis.  Some months that will be more some months that will be less, but non the less that is my first order of business.  So on top of regular monthly payments that is approximately an additional $400 going to debt (yeah not as much as I would like).  I also plan to snowball our funds.  When we pay off a debt add that payment to the next and so on and so forth until we have no more debt.  My husband thinks my goal of $25,000 is high.  I think it is low and that I need to figure out how to be more aggressive.  I would LOVE to see that number jump easily to $30,000.  

Now for my actual plan....I do not want to spend money we do not need to spend.  We are a family of 9 and easily could spend everything extra on going out to eat and other things.  First no going out to eat, 2nd no gas station food if not traveling, 3rd I need to stay off of eBay as a buyer and only use it for selling.  I also need to figure out how to follow our budget better :)  Sounds easy enough right?  For us maybe not so much.  I have started by eliminating my cell phone, even if only for 6 months that along with the iPad being paid off is an extra $80 a month to put on debt.  So add that $480 to the $4800 I am planning and I have an extra $5280 a year.  Without the assistance of extra money we are already on track to pay off $20,000 in debt (see why I think $25,000 is a weak goal).

I also believe we need to go back to using cash for EVERYTHING we do not need to pay out of our account cause saving change is a fast way to build up extra money.  

I am also going to update regularly to hold myself accountable and state what we did or did not do to help our gains and our fails.  So here is wishing us luck to a HUGH decline in debt for 2016!