The Nitty Gritty

I guess I have a lot of explaining to do 

The big question out there is, "Why haven't you been posting much lately?" Great short question with a not so short answer.

It all started at the end of January just a few days before my birthday. I was having a great day at work and things were finally going alright. Right before the day was over I was called into the head honchos office. Feeling like I'd been doing a great job, I walked in with confidence.  That is, until I saw "them".

Anytime you walk into your masters house and there's more than one person in there that is twice your age, and there is a security officer right outside the door, you're not getting a raise!

In english: I lost my job. Also, we somehow lost the camera cord to post pictures, which we still haven't found. We think we know who the culprit is. She goes by AC. Thanks to a loving Sister, we were able to barrow a camera cord to get some pictures posted!

The last 3 months haven't been a cake walk for us. I'd have to say probably one of the most humbling times in my little family's life. I wish I could say it was all easy, but it wasn't. There's been a lot of praying and faith building exercises.

I don't know why God likes to keep us on our toes literally till the last minute when bills are due. Maybe it's because He just wants to see how much we will trust him?

There are so many stories I could share with you of how God has blessed us within these last 3 months. There honestly hasn't been a day that we've gone without. Every one of our needs have been met.

He has provided jobs on the side for me to do in order to help provide; all the way to God putting us on people's hearts that have blessed us more than we could have ever imagined! I will forever be grateful.

The good news is, I have a new full time job! I'm pretty sure I can say with confidence that I am done with the medical field. Although, I love helping the sick and injured, I love working with my hands and getting dirty more.

All that said, I will be the new Lead Grounds Keeper for one of the local Community Colleges. I'll start at the beginning of May. We're not out of the deep end yet financially. We know God is going to take care of us and provide as long as we are following in His will and are being obedient. 

On a totally different subject: The condition of Dirty Tyson. All the kings horses and all the kings men were able to put him together again...except for a big chunk of his tail feather. I have searched high and low, over and under, in and out and the big chunk of ceramic is just GONE.

So, he may not be completely whole, but he's still just as loyal and will continue to be the Trade Me Out of Debt Mascot, tail feather or not.

Diving Into The Unknown

 I know there are programs out there to help you get  in control and get out of debt but... 

 I want to try something different. I want to trade items, starting with something small, and working my way up to something big enough that I could sell to pay off our debt at the end of this project. I guess you could call this some what of a bigger better game?

My goal: I want to see if it is possible to get rid of all our debt, which is around $95,000 or so in roughly 3 years through consecutively trading up items. This includes our credit card debt and stupid financing mistakes, school loans, and our house.

It seems crazy but anything is possible if you set your mind to it. As a family, we are getting our life back in order and regularly working on a plan to eliminate our debt for good. Life just happened (cars broke down, people got sick, death, unexpected, jobs lost, etc..). I can't count the number of times that we had a large savings built up of at least 3 months living expenses or more and then without warning we would get hit with something that wiped our whole savings out! Then, back to back to back, additional things would happen digging us deeper in a whole.

I know others have tried the so called "Craigslist trading up game," but this is different...


This applies to everyone of us. There are not many people these days that are blessed to be debt free. Some out there were born into very wealthy families, others to not so wealthy. Some out there had everything stripped away from them and at one point had the so called "perfect life".

 Life is dealt differently to each person. Some go along never having anything happen to them and then there are those others...Where it seems to never stop raining. This is my story...I was born into a very wealthy family, and through a series of events, everything we ever had was stripped away. I know there are others out there have tried these "trading up" projects, but mine is different. Mine is unique, and I feel many others out there can relate.


Thanks for checking out my project and I hope that you enjoy the journey with me. 


Who knows where this project will take us, or the type of people we will meet. I am excited to dive into the unknown and experience an unique project, that from my knowledge has never been done like this before. However you happened across this site, I would love to have you as one of my followers.