OK. I have known it for a while but I have a serious problem with financial DENIAL!!! I have started reading The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey as a suggestion from this really cool person I know, Miss. Anyways, holy debt Batman!!! I am financially fat and the person I am looking at in the mirror is not looking good!
Ken and I are starting Ramsey's total money makeover and the next few years of our lives are gonna be different people!!! We are going to be learning how to live like no one else so that later we CAN live like no one else:) This is going to be a challenge and hard work and eye opening and did I say hard work?
I am hoping to use my blog as a tool for accountability and also sharing our journey through the whole process. Sorry if I bore you all with our getting out of debts plans, but really my life isn't that exciting.
So we are working on making sure we are current with all of our monthly payments for everything like utilities, mortgages, loans, medical bills, etc.. Everything needs to be current before we can move on to the next step. This will be done by the end of this month.
The next baby step is having a $1000 emergency fund. Well God (you know, the Almighty!) has provided that for us in one lump sum!! He is good, really really good. Imagine my surprise (not God's) when I finally picked up my property tax papers from my aunt, our tax lady, thinking we would maybe get back 300 or so. Nope!!! $1087 to be exact. Holy emergency fund Batman:) So by the end of November hopefully we will have baby step 2 completed and on our way to baby step 3.
Now the hardest part. Step 3, the debt snowball. Yuck! I have always know in the back of my head how much debt we have, but seeing it down on paper from smallest to largest, PAINFUL. I have been working on our debt list, minimum payments, total payoff, interest rates, and all that junk. So when we are ready to start tackling that, we have a plan in place.
The funnest part in all of this is seeing already how God has provided for us. I am looking forward to this journey a) to be debt free and b) to have my relationship with the Lord grow even more:)
So as a disclaimer to family and friends:
If it looks like we have money, we don't! We are like the rest of America and just
pretending. If we start selling a bunch of stuff, we are not crazy. We are just trying to wipe
out our debt fast and furious by making money where we can. If our gifts to you are not as
much as it seems like we could spend on you, just wait 10-15 years and the see the gifts we
will be giving away. Short term pain for long term gain! Thanks for understanding.
I will update further in my journey:)
4 comments:
I too have been reading the book, I am so excited to get it rolling, Thank God for your emergency fund. What a blessing. We can keep each other accountable during this life changing process.
YEAH FOR YOU!! (and even more for God...what a great emergency fund gift!)
I know it looks daunting on this side of things, but as we have been trudging our way thru the past 14 months it gets easier and more exciting each month we check off!! I am soooo proud of you guys!
I've heard of that tactic. But I never actually saw the "whole" plan. we have a list of our bills from small to big and all that, but we kind-of skipped over the whole savings thing. Maybe we should do that next...
Can't wait to hear the updates!
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