Taking charge of our financial journey...

I have prayed long & hard about sharing this. Please note, I am not a financial adviser, I am just sharing our journey. Our first step was to eliminate all debt. It took us a little while (we were already on that journey) and by the time we purchase our new place and sell our current home we will be completely debt free. We are continuing to look for a new place over the next few weeks. Something that is in our price range (very firm on that). 

We started our preparedness journey when a friend shared a couple books with us. “Aftershock”& “Inflation Deception”. Thankfully DH & I have been on the same page from day one. We are not comfortable with the state of the economy, the banking system or the Federal Reserve. So we are opting out with our biggest decision yet.

So the biggest step in this journey is that we have cashed out our 401k's and my “bean” stocks. We agreed to take the tax hit and liquidate our assets. We are currently discussing just how we will be “storing” these assets. I probably won't be going into a lot of details about this for obvious reasons. I will say it will be building self sufficiency and hard commodities.
As for our monthly goals, I am changing how I look at that for the time being. While I strongly believe in setting goals, adding more to storage, etc.; we are seriously looking at a purchase of another place in the country within in the next couple months. That is if we find something that will work.

Because of that, I am focusing my monthly goals more on adequate storage for the new place. I realize that we will need to move everything that we have stored, which will be a journey in and of itself.

Of course I will continue to “use one, buy two”.

Many of you are able to attest, getting out of debt it one of the most important steps.
I know how hard it is to do, but I want to strongly encourage you to take the steps to eliminate your debt. I had started a post on personal fiscal responsibility and getting out of debt. I made this graphic. It made me laugh.

I realized that I was just saying the same thing over and over. Get out of debt and don't incur any further debt.
If you think back, it seems everyone and their mother was saying buy this or that for Christmas on their facebook page. While I don't judge them, I simply couldn't do it. Instead I want to encourage you to save and then make purchases. Don't go into debt.

So, on that note...

We have discuss debt before. How do you feel about the state of our economy? 

UPDATE July 2014: As you may know we are currently have a contract to purchase our new home. This will be paid for entirely with CASH. Now that, IMHO, is a "hard commodity".
PROTECTION: A Real Life Cautionary Tale...
While I was editing this for reposting, I received this information from a loyal person in our community. please take time to read this. I will be sharing this again soon.