~Financial Peace~

What does it mean to have Financial Peace?  Kind of amazing, but from the day I started college until last Friday, I didn’t know.  I started out with a college loan and I ended up with more in the end.  I didn’t think when I got scholarships for my junior and senior year I should have used my excess money to pay off those loans, instead the interest kept accumulating.  Rob also had some tuition debt as well from his senior year.

Then, Rob got laid off after thirty days of his first job and lived off his credit cards until we got married.  On top of that, we bought a car that we couldn’t really afford (but thought we could).  Then we had to move to Houston and purchase some furniture.  No excuses, we just behaved like everyone else in America I think.  We tend to think, we’ll buy it now and just pay for it later.  It’s not how much does it cost… it’s how much money down and how much a month?  Why is that our mentality?  We thought we were some big ‘hot shots’ with new careers, we can afford a new car.  Uh… NO!

We aren’t hot shots.  Not even close to hot shots.  I tend to think my generation’s mindset is that we can instantly be as good as our parents.  That’s just not the case.  We have to start at the bottom and work as hard as our parents to get where they are now.  They drove beater cars just like we should have done.

But anyways (Dave would say we’re paying our “stupid tax” on our car), we did manage to pay off Robert’s credit cards as soon as we got married and he started his new job, so that really just left us with my student loans, Rob’s tuition, and Rob’s car.  In total close to $35K. 

In June 2010, my dad got us started on Dave Ramsey.  My dad attended Financial Peace University at his church and said it was just excellent.  Once he finished the course, he gave us all of the materials including the book, workbook, and lectures.  We tuned in and got started.  Here’s how Dave’s plan works, its called the Baby Steps:

1)      $1,000 to start an emergency fund

2)      Pay off all debt using the Debt Snowball (smallest to largest)

3)      3 to 6 months of expenses ins avings

4)      Invest 15% of household income into Roth IRAs and 401(k)s

5)      College funding for children

6)      Pay off home early

7)      Build wealth and give!

You can check out his website here where you can find the baby steps and learn more.

We have since listened to all the lectures, done the workbook, and I’ve read his book.  We also listen to Dave’s radio show regularly during the week.  I created a budget that we monitor monthly and make forecasts for the next months and review it annually.  We’ve just been chucking all of our extra money towards this debt.  In truth, if I’d been able to cut back on a few trips home and vacations, we could have paid this off quite a bit faster…but, I made the choice to go on vacation and see family rather than staying home.

We downloaded all of our transactions from our bank’s website and took a hard, close look at our expenses.  We realized we were spending close to $100 every two weeks on lunch.  Well, now we always take our lunch to work.  We budget $75 only for fast food a month.

I, of course, had to trim back my shopping and we created our dining out and grocery budgets too.  We now have a budget for every major household expense and monitor our spending just about daily.  And any excess money gets applied to our snowball.  The only deviations I made to Dave’s plan were the following:

1)      I built up our 3-6 months of living expenses over the course of our year instead of applying that to our debt out of fear of someone losing their job (since that had already happened to Rob once.).

2)      We never stopped contributing at LEAST 8% of our salary to our 401(k)s.  I just felt like I was cheating myself out of a good time to buy.

3)      We have also been putting aside just a little bit of money towards our down payment for our house since January.

These are certainly not exceptions I would recommend.  But I’m overly cautious and risk averse, so I felt like we needed extra cash built up and could sleep better at night.  I've also read "The Millionaire Next Door" which Dave recommends and am about to start "Rich Dad, Poor Dad."

That being said, it took us one year and one month to pay off all of our debt, with the last 7 months of payments applying directly to Robert’s car.  So, we officially own BOTH cars, have no student loan debt, and no credit card debt.  Let me tell ya.. it feels great.  The saying is true… the borrower is forever enslaved to the Lender.  It feels so good to know that my money now is my money.  It doesn’t have to get partitioned out to apply here and there.  Everything we do, we’ll do using cash.  If we can’t afford it, we’ll wait and save up the money.

Now, we’re chucking all of what were our debt payments to build our house down payment.  We’re shooting for at least 20% down and a 15 year mortgage.  That’s the plan, and we don’t expect to deviate from it.  If we have to rent a little bit longer, so be it.  But if we stick to our budget, we should be able to buy this time next year.  I don’t want to be 55 before I own my home (you don’t have to be either… do you know how much interest you can save by making 26 payments instead of 24?--- check it out!).

If you have a $200,000, 30-year home mortgage at 5.5% and pay it bi-weekly, you will have paid off your home in 24.85 years and saved $41,500 in interest  That’s big bucks in my book.

But, the message of this blog isn’t really supposed to be just about us.  It needs to be about you.  Where are you on your path to financial freedom?  I hope our story can motivate you to do something about your finances.  It truly feels wonderful to be in control of all of our money and direct it to exactly where we want it to go.  I can truly speak to Dave’s Plan and would recommend it completely.  Even above his baby steps, he has excellent investment, insurance, and real-estate advice.  He even offers a free service where he will recommend advisors to you that have been approved by him.  So you know the people you are working with are at least Dave’s fans.

Robert and I are attending his Total Money Makeover in October.  There’s always more to learn and lessons to re-learn.  I’ve discovered its important to stay motivated to “Live Like No One Else Today So You Can Live Like No One Else Tomorrow.” 

Thanks Dave Ramsey.  You’ve changed our life and our lifestyle for forever (though I won’t pretend we haven’t cursed your name a few times!)

WE'RE DEBT FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!