The Egglestons Mean Business

The Egglestons are hard at work on the Debt Diet. After cutting household expenses by $500 a month and learning the secret credit card game, Sally and Dan are ready to tackle the next step.

Step 6: Take big steps to grow your income.
Dan is coaching baseball at the school where he teaches, for an additional $1,300. Every summer, Dan runs a lawn care business. This year he's adding customers and raising rates by 10 percent, which will lead to about $4,000 in additional income. A part-time gig painting houses is also helping Dan bring in extra cash—he made $200 already, and has more jobs lined up.

Sally is finding new ways to earn money, too. Sally plans to teach summer school, for an additional $2,500 in income. She's also making extra cash by selling items like old clothes on eBay—she's made $150 so far, and has lots more to go!

The biggest boost towards growing the Egglestons' income is an unexpected gift from Uncle Sam—a whopping $4,021 income tax return! Instead of using part of the return to pay off bills and saving the rest, the Egglestons use their refund to pay off five credit cards.

That's not all! The Egglestons' Debt Diet coach David Bach says by correcting an error on their 2003 taxes and refiling that return with the IRS, the Egglestons will receive another $844 tax refund! David says if you choose to have an accountant do your taxes, bring your tax returns from the past three years—you may have extra money coming to you!

Sally and Dan both say the Debt Diet has brought them closer together as a couple. "That has been the biggest thing we've gained from this—not only financially having a plan and a focus—just Dan and I working together, it's just been phenomenal," says Sally.

Before the Debt Diet, Dan and Sally never talked about money, and now it's a positive part of the couple's daily life. "There was a whole part of our life that we didn't talk about—which was finances—and that's a big part of your life," Dan says.

David says the Egglestons will be well on their way to becoming millionaires if they pay themselves first and invest half of their additional income every year. After taxes, that comes down to about $3,000 that the couple can apply towards their 403b retirement plan. With an annual interest rate of 8 percent, the Egglestons will earn $375,000 in 30 years:

Extra income = $8,000
Extra income after taxes = $6,000
Invest 1/2 annually = $3,000
30 years at 8% = $375,000

Dan and Sally are on track to earn an additional $8,000 this year and that means they've grown their income by 10% in less than 60 days, but they can't stop now. "Summer's going to be very, very profitable for us and we're going to pay off at least three more [credit cards] in the next year," says Dan.

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