One Step At A Time

Since we have started on the Debt Snowball, we have started to receive calls from debt collectors and one in particular has not been pleasant. Her name is Ms. Brown and she keeps calling about Felicia's court reporting bill. A little background on this bill: Felicia was going to CRID, the Court Reporting Institute, and she decided to leave early because she was in her last trimester of pregnancy and it was difficult to get around with her steno machine. Before the quarter started she told them that she was taking a leave of absence and would return after the baby was born, but they talked her into signing up for the quarter and told her it would be okay if she did not finish the quarter. It turns out they wanted her to attend until her student loan paid them and then allow her to drop, but the student loan did not pay them and now they want to collect from Felicia. Ms. Brown called Felicia one day and started to tell Felicia that she was in "breach of contract" and needed

Lately, we have had some weird things happen at the house that has caused us to get a little off track with the budget. In spite of these things, we have not touched our emergency fund and have just found other ways around these emergencies. Our dryer and our stove are busted. We are renting and the land lord had us call a appliance warranty company but for both appliances they claim are unfix-able and not under warranty. We are waiting to hear back from the land lords to see what they want to do about it, but nothing yet. The dryer is a simpler problem to work around because we can take the clothes to our parents house and wash them while we visit, Felicia's mom will sometimes take a couple of loads and do them herself for us, or we can go to the laundry mat. The stove on the other hand is little more difficult especially since we don't like to cook anyway and now we have to learn to bake instead of cooking Hamburger Helper. I am kidding but when we cook it is pretty bas

We have had to add a few more things to the debt snowball. The new Total Debt amount is $21,625.22 so that leaves the Total Remaining at $20,637.89. Three debts got added to the snowball, and two of them we knew were coming and we were just waiting on the final tally to come in. See back in May, our daughter got sick and she had to spend 3 days in the hospital and she had to have a procedure done. After the insurance paid their part there was $1,403.00 left to pay. Thank God for insurance! The third bill is one we forgot about. Felicia was attending a court reporting school here in Dallas that we were paying for on credit (student loans). The last quarter she attended she dropped early because she was in her 3rd trimester of pregnancy and it was hard for her to maneuver with her steno machine. As a result of dropping early, the student loan did not pay for the classes and the school is now charging her for it ($1,508.00). It looks like if we pay the minimums we can have our deb

We are officially working on paying off our debt!!! We started this financial journey with $18,714.22 in debt and paying some of the minimum payments while working on the $1,000.00 emergency fund, we have paid $987.33 of it. Now, we have a total of $17,726.89 to payoff and by using the Debt Snowball and calculating only paying the minimum payment we will be debt free September 2014. Wow, that is 5 years from now! Felicia and I are committed to throwing whatever extra money comes in at our Debt. Throughout the year we do get extra money that we could use like my bonuses, my overtime, Felicia's sock monkey sales, and when we save money shopping. I know we can we get this done before September 2014. To keep track of our progress, I have added a Debt Snowball Tracker on the Top Right of this blog. What kind of debt do we have that adds up to $18,714.22? Looking at everything I put into the Debt Snowball it looks like $192 is from a checking account that went in the

WE DID IT!!!! We have finished Baby Step 1!!! We have a $1000.00 Emergency Fund!!!! Right now, it feels good to have $1,000.00 in savings. Checking off this step has encouraged us to keep going and we are ready to tackle Step 2, which is to pay off our debt using the Debt Snowball. Felicia and I worked hard to accomplish this. We had to hold each other accountable to sticking to the budget we both agreed to. It is not easy, especially when you get invited to parties, dinners, and going out with friends, but we are doing good saying no when the money isn't there. Living on the envelope system is not as bad as I thought it was going to be. If the cash is there, we use it and if it is not, we don't spend it. We are working on taking this momentum and applying it to our debt snowball. Because we budget and stick to it, we knew what day we were hitting this goal and budgeted some celebration money. Felicia and I got her parents to watch the kids while we went to dinner at L

Last Friday, I saw what Gazelle Intensity looks like when a spouse has it. I did not know what it was at first; I saw Felicia getting mad and frustrated and I tried to step in. Felicia and I were talking about not being able to go to the Taste of Dallas or not being able to buy something that we needed, and she got frustrated. What I was expecting from us was that we would temporarily lose our minds and do what we wanted to do. But before I could react, Felicia pulled out the envelope system and started placing cash in the right envelopes according to the budget. She was getting frustrated because she thought that the math was not working out, but she ended up being right on with the figures. I saw her saying that this was too hard to do so I took over the envelopes and checked the math. She had it right. I started to say something like "it's going to be tough but we need to keep at it" or something to that effect that could come off as encouraging or lecturing. I

This week, we do not have class due to the 4th of July. All this week will allow us to continue to put into effect some of the things we learned. Our budget is still on track, we have had to make some adjustments but not from under budgeting. There were a couple of categories where we budgeted too much money, so we re-allocated those funds. The thought behind the re-allocation is to not have money floating around, but to spend every dollar. I even got an extra $8 dollars in my paycheck that helped us with some of the 4th of July expenses. The nervousness I was feeling after we did the budget has helped us stay on track. We try to make sure every dollar is well spent and it feels good. The next time we get paid is 07/10/09 and we are pretty sure our money will last that long. I was really nervous about the grocery envelope, it is getting kind of low, but I just looked in the kitchen and we have enough food to last until payday. However, we still may need to get some bread, milk

On June 28th, we had our 4th class of FPU and it was all about DEBT. I think this is the part that drives people to look into Dave, they hear bits and pieces about his program and getting out of debt, but when they hear him talk about never BORROWING money again they are quickly turned off. For Felicia and me, we liked that part. This lesson is about how to get out of debt, taking an honest look at what it cost to finance things you could save up for, and what you could do if you had no debt. How to get out of debt? Listening to Dave on the radio , I know that when I hear a new caller talks to Dave the first things he will tell them is to get on written cash plan, stop borrowing money, start saving money, and work the debt snowball. I know what you are thinking, "you need to listen to a radio show to know that." Well, sometimes you do. Sometimes you need a stranger to knock some sense into you! If it was that easy to do, we already be doing it. It would not take an

On the 24th of this month, Felicia and I sat together and had our first Budget Committee Meeting. We instituted Dave's rules and got through the meeting without an argument. The goal of the meeting was to produce a realistic budget for the month of July and we thought we did. One of the rules for me was to shut up and give the budget to Felicia. That was hard to do. My hands were actually shaking when I handed her the budget and had to watch her make changes to it. In the middle of our meeting, the part where she looks it over and makes changes, I had to run to the store to get diapers for the kids and when I came back she explained the changes and how she made the changes balance to zero again. Her changes were reasonable and we agreed to the budget. I am pretty sure we both felt good about the budget and were looking forward to putting into effect. The next morning while I was getting ready for work I realized we forgot to budget for some very important items. We actually

Last Sunday was our 3rd class in Financial Peace University, and we talked about the the dreaded B-word, Budget. Since I read Total Money Makeover months ago, we have been doing the budget and have posted several times about it. Therefore, I am not going to go over every detail of this past Sunday's class, but will discuss some of the issues I have with budgeting so far. I believe if I keep honestly critiquing us and our money management, it will help us in the long run to win with money. Having a lot of money is not the desired result of this process, the results we are looking for are Financial Peace, retire with dignity, and pursue some of our dreams later in life. Below are just some of the things and habits that gets in our way of achieving our goals. One of the things that I do that absolutely does not work is create the budget and never look at it again. I work hard to make a zero based budget and making sure every dollar has a name, but never pull out the game plan to m

This past Sunday was our 2nd class in FPU and it was about money and relationships. During the class, I could not help but look back at how Felicia and I have handled money and our relationship. We have always gotten along real well but when it came to money fights, we were seasoned fighters. Looking back, we had a lot of unnecessary fights. In a nutshell, it was her job to pay the bills and my job to complain about what happened to all the money. Honestly, that is how it was. I let her pay all the bills, then I would ask how much we had left and when I did not like the answer, I would launch an investigation into the matter. Understandably, she would take offense to the Spanish Inquistion and then the gloves would go on and 12 rounds later nothing would be solved. In hindsight, we both played a part in our financial mess. I chose to turn a blind eye to it and not deal with it; and she would deal with the financial stress with Ebay therapy. We have both gotten a lot better. I

A budget is not something you put off. When we do our budget, it helps us stay on track. In the past, I have written about getting off track but even during those times a budget kept us from going overboard. This time around we kept putting it off and putting it off and just kept spending without a plan. This laziness has hurt us and it pushes us further away from our goals. When we got paid on the15th, we did pretty good and had some extra cash in our envelopes at the end of the two weeks. This paycheck, I know we have spent more than we brought in and had to go tap into savings for non-emergencies. When this happens, it feels like I have let my family down. I am the one who is going to set the example for my children and their money. I could always just spin it and tell them that this is an example of what not to do. I know the habits that we are supposed to have that will make this work. It starts with making the budget. Duh! It needs to be done in order to make the money behave. W

Yesterday, Felicia and I started our first class of Financial Peace University. FPU is a 13 week course made up of a hour of Video Tutorial by Dave Ramsey and an hour of discussion in small groups. We have been looking for months for a class to fit our schedule and due to my work schedule the best time was Sunday evenings. Originally, we found a small church that had 3 participants in the class in Cedar Hill. We were going to join that class but we felt we wanted to be part of a class that was little bigger. Yesterday, the class was at a Duncanville church and had at least 75 participants in the class and during the discussion period, the class had to be broken into at least 5 small groups. We both enjoyed our first class and our looking forward to the rest of them. This first class was about saving money and accomplishing Step 1. Step 1 is saving $1,000 for an emergency fund. I know it is not a huge emergency fund but it is a good starting point. The idea is to set small goals an

There are a lot of foreclosures in the Dallas area now and everyone is saying this is the best time for us to buy a home, but I am hesitant to do so. Listening to Dave Ramsey , I know it is the best time to buy if you have the money and I do not have the money right now. Felicia and I want to make sure our house is a blessing and not a burden. Currently, my job is to help people who are 5 to 6 months behind on their mortgage. Right now, the modifications are being pushed to lower interest rates and/or reduce principle balances so homeowners can get lower payments. I always try to be sympathetic to everyone's situation but for a lot of people I cannot put myself in their shoes. I understand having hardships because loss of income, medical bills, divorces, deaths in family, and things like this. But what gets me is when you start to go over their budgets, you start to see misplaced priorities. I tried to understand and help every client by putting myself in their shoes, I un

It has been a tough week for us and I don't think we are out of the woods yet. We spent every day this week except for Tuesday at the hospital with my daughter and I have been out of work the whole time as result. Finally we are home and she seems to be doing better but we are still waiting for some test results. We are praying that she is better and that the test will come back negative. We are also thankful for all the thoughts, prayers, and encouraging words our family and friends sent our way. As a result of being out of work for the whole week, I will not be getting paid for it. Unfortunately, I do not have any more sick time to use at work and we will have to be careful with every penny from now on. We pray this will be a small setback that we can recover from quickly. Knowing a storm is coming and not being fully prepared is a little scary. It has made us realize how important it is to get our finances in order as fast as we can. If we had a fully funded emergency f

We are still trying to get back on track with our money plan, and I am trying to remind myself what motivated me in the first place. Last June, we found out we were having our second child and that made me stop and evaluate where we were financially. Honestly, I did not like it. This is what I saw: no savings, renting a small house that would not be big enough for all four of us, knowing that Felicia would not get paid on maternity leave, and $20,000 worth of debt. Stressing out about our current financial status lead me to a billboard I kept seeing on my way home. This billboard had a picture of a bald guy on it and the words “Act your Wage”. I started to realize that we were not acting our wage and digging ourselves deeper into trouble. I changed the radio station to hear what this bald guy had to say and immediately realized this guy made a lot of sense, especially for people in our situation. I began to research the bald guy online, and found out that his name was Dave Rams

I have not posted anything in awhile and so I am going to try and catch up on everything that has gone on. Starting To Turn It Around I feel like we are starting to turn our downward spiral around. The week before our son's birthday party we spent way too much money and still had to pay for a party. Initially, we had planned a low budget party and we kept to that game plan. I thought it came out nice and Anthony had a good time. I think Felicia has the gazelle intensity now because she got after me the other day. On my late day for work, I thought I did not have time to make my lunch so I decided to buy lunch and when Felicia found out she nearly hit the roof. She looked at me and reminded me of the sacrifices we need to make now to get where we want to be. At first I was offended, who is she to be getting after me for buying lunch? Later in the day, she looked at the bank account online and discovered that I also bought breakfast instead of making it because I thought I di

I have not written an entry in a long time, because it has been hard to find time since Maya was born. She was born 02/02 and weighed 7 lbs 7 oz. She is the prettiest little girl you have ever seen with thick black hair. We have been doing pretty good with our money, we only dipped into savings once and that was when we came home from the hospital. We may need to dip into a little bit in a couple of days with the health insurance being due but that is what it is there for. Felicia and I are looking into attending one of the local Financial Peace University Classes in our area. I am really excited about the thought of it. Following Dave Ramsey since July has allowed us to enjoy every moment with our daughter without having to worry about money to much and we wanted to see what else can happen when continue with the rest of the plan. We still have a small problem of eating out, but we are getting better each month. Got to get back to the kids!

I wrote yesterday about how we have been messing up and we need to get back on track. We finally went grocery shopping and I think we did a good job. We budgeted 150.00 for the trip and only spent 133.00. Not too bad. Like I said yesterday, we will work hard to get back on track.

So far it has been a horrible start to the New Year as far as budgeting goes. I am not trying to make excuses, but we need to find out why we are doing so bad. I think I know...we are getting anxious about the birth of our daughter. Felicia has been feeling bad the last couple of weeks and this week she has been having irregular contractions. We keeping coming up with excuses not to cook or to buy something we really don't need. Deep down we know we are just trying relieve stress or make ourselves feel better at that moment. Now is the time to stop and tighten the ropes a little bit. Felicia has stopped working two weeks before we planned, but the good news is that we did so good in savings that we have enough in an emergency fund to survive. Thanks for the advice on that one, Dave Ramsey! We stockpiled some cash and now we need to be careful in how we spend it. It would be a shame to do so well and then manage those funds poorly. Even though we have done poorly this mont

We did the budget and the breakdown by pay dates and thought we were all set. And BAM!!! We messed up. We did the budget put it away did not look at again to make sure we were spending the way we agreed. It's crazy we take 2 steps forward and one step back. I budgeted 150.00 for eating out for the whole month and in the first week we spent 183.00 by going to Olive Garden, P F Changs, Mickey D's, Bakery, and Donut Shop. We are not starting the year very good but hopefully we can get it turned around very quickly. On a happier note, we are counting down until our baby girl is born. She is supposed to be here Feb 2nd, I can't wait.