One Step At A Time

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 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...

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 ...

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...

Felicia and I decided that when we become debt free and have a fully funded emergency fund, we are going on a debt free vacation to celebrate. A lot of listeners to Dave Ramsey call in to yell about being debt free and a lot of them talk about celebrating by going to Disneyland. We have never been and think it would be nice to take the kids when they are a little older. Right now, vacation is not in the budget, but we are getting started by adding in change that we get into a piggy bank that I made. All it is an old diaper wipes box that I painted green and wrote "Vacation Fund" on. I am thinking about updating the amount of the Vacation Fund once a month. We will see. Christmas was good for us. We did not buy any presents for any adults and stayed in our budget. My son got lots of presents from his grandparents, aunts, and uncles. Felicia and I got the best present, not having to worry about how we are going to survive on December 26th. I do have to admit I was a ...