A dose of my own medicine

Last week I called Dave Ramsey out in my post and blamed him for my problems (previous post) and I was going to share this morning how I figured out to keep my car and pay it off in a little more than a year.... As I was blogging in my mind I realized how amazing ridiculous my plan was! I was planning on having our family throw away lovingly give me $ 10,000 this year just so I could justify keeping my car plus an additional $10,000 next February. What was I thinking!

I love my car and there is nothing that will be comparable (Sorry, Chrysler even your 300 can't quite compete) but to put $10,000 on my house or in savings would be amazing. We can make the extra payments and we can pay it off in 2.5 years instead of 5 years but what is my gain? A car that is going to depreciate by 5% a year? What if I could be making 5% a year on that money instead and than when I am richer buy another posh car...

What I have had to come to terms with is, How serious am I about getting out of debt? I can push everyone else but I have been lacking the willingness in one very large area. I am feeling like I need to punch debt in the face (the title of one of my favorite blogs right now).

Maybe we will keep the car, maybe God will bless us with the money to keep it or most likely we will sell the car and I will have to swallow my pride so that we can be debt free and living a happier life. And any way it happens I will be okay because it is just a thing and I would rather be storing up my treasures in Heaven anyways. ( But some here on earth wouldn't be too bad either...)

What are your thoughts? Is there something in your life that is holding you back from your last goal?

Take stock of what is important to you and what it will cost to keep it, is it worth it?

Money...It's a hit

Last night we started the Financial Peace University by Dave Ramsey, if you haven't read his book yet I highly recommend it!

He recommends making finacial "baby steps" so that they are manageable, but being the overachiever that I am, I am ready to do all 10 steps tomorrow. And I am pretty sure that selling your stuff and having no place to sleep is not the wisest financial decicion, even if you are debt free. So I will take my time...at least today.

I often get overwhelmed by the debt we have accumulated but when I stop and think all that has finacially happend to us in the last 4.5 years, I think we are doing pretty good....

Got married, first apartment, career change, major car repairs, unexpected no pay for 2 months, moved to Texas for 3 months, got pregnant with twins, moved to England, rented 2 houses, bought six used cars, had our 3rd baby, insane electric/ oil bills, trips to the states, and not to mention clothing and feeding three kids with increasing living costs...All on one income.

And now we moved back to the states 9 months ago and had to buy appliances, two cars, and a house!

Now, I am not telling you these things not so you can feel sorry for me, but to encourage you that you are not alone in trying to live and stay out of debt!

Life happens and it often happens faster than we think it will. And for us we have never had a moment to get prepared! But we are better prepared now with a nice little emergency fund.

Oh,......there are so many things I would have done differently if I could go back in time ( like save the money I got from my wedding! Or just save!).

But we were young and dumb and thought life couldn't touch us, well it did, it grabbed us by the collar and dragged us through the mud!

But thanks to encouragment from my Mom, Dave Ramsey, and Larry Burkett ( another financial genius), we are heading down a road to financial freedom. We are on our way and looking forward to enjoying the fruits of our labor.

I encourage you not to give up on getting out of debt or to even start digging yourself out of debt, it will be so worth it! The path will be hard and there will be set backs but it doesn't need to stop you!

If you have any questions let me know or if you have any getting out of debt tips I would love to hear them!

Definitely checkout these two books because you are going to need a game plan:

 

Somethings are (worth their) debt

My husband and I are working on getting out of debt for what feels like the billionth time... I am pretty sure I could have payed cash for my car and a sizeable down payment on our house with all the money we have used to pay down/off debt. But alas we have not been able to do that and I have basically nothing to show for the debt we have accumulated.

What I do have is a million excuses as to why we keep getting into debt and they are pretty good ones like...  moving every 2 years maximum or having to buy all new major appliances because we had borrowed/ bought UK appliances (we lived in England for 3 years) and they just don't work in the states. I could go on and on, like I said I have got a million (too bad I don't get a dollar for each).

If I had known what I know now we might not be in this situation, but we are, and I just happen to be one of those "live and learn" type of people. When will I learn to listen to people so I can avoid these problems!!!

And why did I waste my money in my youth! Oh, if only I had a time machine.

But we are wising up and now we are super committed to be getting out of debt! We have buckled down and tried to find extra money in every nook and crannie. My work horse of a husband has even taken on a second job working on a farm (not as a horse). I have cut most corners, but I confess there are some that I am unwilling not sure would be beneficial in the long run.

One corner still intact is our car... this is killing our budget right now because we elected to pay off our loan in five years (good for saving money, bad for the budget). We have contemplated selling it and cutting our losses but it just seems like a temporary solution, as we will have to replace it and take out another loan, and face a car that may break down (we have gone through 5 cars in 3 years). Maybe I am being silly and I should just let the car go... ask me in four years if it was worth it.

Being frugal and saving money is overrated wonderful and even if I didn't have debt I would still try to do things inexpensively. No, really it is we have managed to pay off  $10,000 in the last 6 months (this has not come from our paycheck but has been extra money we have gotten... oh how nice would it be to that money now, I would be super posh...oh, wait I just said I would save money even if we didn't need to... darn).

When all this money junk gets overwhelming my Mom always reminds me that it's God's money and if He wants to spend it on car repairs, than I just need to let it go.
 Maybe not backed by scripture perfectly but hey it makes me feel better! Be encouraged times are hard but debt sucks more, so put on your big boy pants and start tackling it and don't feel like you have to give up everything!