A New Begining <=> AKA I need a do-over

Greetings and welcome to my blog. I am a naval combat veteran from the first Gulf War and have since getting out of the navy started a new life as a civilian. I became a firefighter and also teach at the local community college. I do love what I do but neither job is know for getting one rich. Over the last decade I have gotten married, bought a house (actually the bank owns it but at least I am current), and had some kids. I love my three precious daughters but again that is not a sign of someone on the way to wealth, they are quite expensive things. Someone along the way I decided they would have every opportunity I could provide for them. In this day and age this is very possible but, I chose the route of instant gratification. Bring on the credit cards, home equity loans, car loans, and even more credit cards! I turned a blind eye to any warning sign and denied my family nothing. I ignored the fact that I did not make what we spent and many times refinanced the house and threw in whatever credit card debt we had only to run up the cards again. I can not even imagine the amount of money we went through over the last eight or so years and I am clueless as to where most of it went. Recent attempts at a budget showed us going further and further into debt each month. Nothing is more frustrating then not being able to come up with a budget that works but I simply could not make enough money to cover our expenses each month. Thus I continued to ignore it. Does anyone else out there know these feelings. My wife too was getting these feelings and occasionally we would try a halfhearted attempt to cut back. This time shall be different however and we have cut up the credit cards! We have shut off the air conditioner! Did I mention we live in south Florida? We have inventoried the house and started selling things we never should have bought and found a plan to work toward a brighter future. Our method? It will be based on Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. You can kinda check it out at http://www.daveramsey.com/fpu/home/. Nothing is more uncomfortable then realization that one has not been properly taking care of one's family... well maybe not doing something about it is but nothing else.