Financial journey continued...

It's been a long road on your journey to financial freedom following the plan laid out in Dave Ramsey's The Total Money Makeover, but we have made amazing progress since our start in September 2009.  In that time, we've gone through some changes:

• Our wages returned to the full amount early 2010 (after a 10% pay cut in early 2009)
• Howard was given the only pay increase in the company at the end of 2009 (other than employees who were given held promotions from the year before)
• I went to 3/4 time at the full-time job in January 2010 and started teaching a class at the community college in the spring semester
• I left the 3/4 time job when my second class started  in March 2010 (late start)
• I picked up 2 classes at a business school (April quarter)
• I taught 4 classes in the next 2 quarters (July and October quarters)
• I also taught an early morning class at the community college in the fall semester of 2010
• Howard got his anxiously awaited promotion at the end of 2010

Through this whole process, Howard worked his butt off and earned a company bonus in all four quarters of 2010.  The bonus from the final quarter of 2009 (and paid out in early 2010) was more than my monthly salary, which gave us a huge leg up and was the reason I was finally able to leave a job that I had long outgrown to pursue a career in education.  Not only that, but my salary over the entire year of 2010 was only about $4,000 less than the previous year, which allowed us to continue working on our debt snowball and get things paid off, though not as fast as we would have liked. 

But that's okay because our outlook for 2010 is even better.  I am still teaching a total of 5 classes at a time, which is considered full-time, though it's still between 2 schools.  My salary is still a little lower than it was at the full-time job, but that's okay, too.  We've learned a lot through Dave Ramsey's plan: we know where we can tighten our budget and still be financially fine.  Howard's promotion (and the raise to go along with it) will give us some extra money each month to attack our debts.  I could possibly be full time at the business school this year, which would give us another boost to get us closer to our goal, maybe faster than we have planned. 

We are now down to a car payment, one credit card, and my student loans.  Our plan is to knock out the credit card and the car payment in the next few months with our tax refund.  We will start paying the student loan and our goal is to pay off the entire balance in one year to be debt free by March 2012.  It is amazing to think that in just over a year we could be debt free other than the house and be ready to start on Baby Step 3 to fully fund our emergency fund of 3-6 months of expenses.  I cannot imagine having a bank account with that much money sitting in it! 

What I'm really excited about is getting to Baby Step 4, where we start funding our 401Ks again and start saving for retirement.  Howard is a little nervous that aren't doing this now, but I believe in this plan we're on, and I know that in the long run, we will reach our money goals!