It CAN be done.
I’ve never made any bones about my debt-free journey. Or my Dave Ramsey fan-girl status.
Now, about six months after paying off our new-to-us Jeep, we’re still debt-free but the house, and have finally made it through Ramsey Baby Step Three: three to six months of expenses tucked away in the bank.
In case you haven’t been following me, which is pretty much all of you, here’s the back story…
Basically, after a few failed business attempts, and a million bad choices, my husband and I had TWICE the debt than we had annual income. According to the old budget sheet (I save it to remind us of how far we’ve come), we were paying out $2000 a month, just in credit card MINIMUMS.
Never mind the ridiculous amount of interest we threw away. Or the fact that the balances grew every month since we didn’t have enough to cover those minimums.
We were drowning in debt, and it was literally making me sick.
Then I discovered the Dave Ramsey podcast, and I stopped feeling ashamed. We were SO not the only ones in that situation. Every day I listened to the stories of countless other families in as bad, or worse, shape getting their acts together, and living completely debt-free.
My husband was convinced that our only way out was bankruptcy, but I started playing the podcast in the house where he could hear it, and it didn’t take long before he was also on board. He finally came to the conclusion that, yes, sometimes you do have to spend money to make money, but only if you have the funds to begin with.
And the rest is history.
I’ve heard and read oodles of negativity about Dave and the concept of debt-free living:
“Easy for Dave Ramsey to say. He’s an old white guy.”
“It’s just money.”
“Debt is just part of life.”
“I can make the payments, so I can afford it.”
“I work hard, so I deserve it.”
“Society holds us back anyway.”
Most of these comments are from people who use “bootstrappers” as an insult, and who think smart phones are a given right.
But, I know how much he’s helped us, and millions of other people, and that’s all the proof I need. And lest you accuse me of drinking the kool-aid (yeah, some consider D.R. to be a cult), we also doubled down on the mortgage during step 3, which is totally not the prescribed order of doing things, but absolutely on the Randomly Me retirement plan. We should have it paid off in about two years.
And, by the way, I didn’t spend a single penny on Dave Ramsey stuff until recently when a like-minded colleague and I purchased DR financial literacy materials for our students. My kids love it, and I love it, too, because they’re learning about saving, and giving, as well. The difference between selfish and selfless.
Never will they be able to say, “The education system failed us. They taught us the pythagorean theorem, but didn’t teach us to create a budget or balance a checkbook.”
You know, the usual excuses.
And, if we’re successful, the kids will work their asses off and graduate college without crippling debt.
Below is a video recording of the DR team’s recent, free Town Hall. It’s awesome.
I dare you to watch it. :)
