Right in the middle of watching "Whose Line Is It, Anyway?" with the teenager, the TV went black and made a little zap noise. It's dead. Even though the title of thist post is about the TV dying, the post is actually about why I'm not freaking out about the TV dying, a really cool feeling actually. I have to thank Dave Ramsey because without his plan to financial freedom, I would have whipped out a credit card to fix everything this last month, and I'd be worrying how to pay it next month. Instead, I checked my checkbook and the only thing I have to think about is where to find a good deal on a good TV that I will buy with cash.
#1 - The TV is 13 years old - it's ancient, right? It's 25" - tiny compared to today's TV standards. I bought it in January 1998 when I got my dinky little apartment in Orange County for me and the now teenager. It was my first major purchase - about $200. I had ordered it from Penney's and used my charge card. I don't know how long it actually took me to pay it off or how much I actually ended up paying. But it was "my" TV - I felt very grown up when I bought it. I knew it wouldn't last forever; therefore, there is no need to freak out that it died. Instead, I laughed.
#2 - H is getting a bonus. So H works A TON, which means he is working A TON of hours that can billed to the company's client, which means that he makes the company a profit and he gets a percentage, albeit a small one, of that profit, which becomes a bonus that pays out over a quarter. Yep, bonus = extra money for crazy stuff like the TV dying = I am not freaking out.
#3 - We have an emergency fund. Does a new TV count as an emergency? Even if H didn't have a bonus, we have an emergency fund, but I am trying to figure out if this counts. Probably not. But, considering that we've have some actual emergencies this month, the emergency fund does cover those (see #4 for the list), so there is money for a new TV! See, no need to freak out here!
#4 - This is the way the past month has been going. Brakes for the SUV = $384. H's computer repair = $180. Heater repair = $184. Dishwasher repair = $194. A grand total of $942 in "extra" spending since mid-November. Really, I am so not surprised that the TV died. It was inevitable that something major would happen after I've already forked out nearly $1000 to keep things running. Really, all I can do is keep laughing. This is funny stuff, right?
Oh did I mention that the Wii is acting up? I am not dealing with that 'til next year....
Showing posts with label dave ramsey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dave ramsey. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Thursday, April 14, 2011
One More Down... One To Go!
We paid off the SUV yesterday!!!!!
We paid the remaining balance of $3798.97 one year and 4 months early for a savings of almost $500 in interest!
I am so glad I found Dave Ramsey on the radio that day in 2009 - we have paid off half our debt so far. No, I won't tell you how much. Maybe when we're done, I'll shock you with the number.
We will now begin attacking my student loan (I still can't believe it equals half our debt, but it's true). We should have it completely paid off by April 2013. Only 2 more years to get completely out of debt (except for the house), and then the REAL fun will begin (saving, saving, saving, and investing!).
I highly recommend The Total Money Makeover
- it changed the way we think about money.
- it changed the way we think about money.Sunday, February 27, 2011
We did it! We did it!
It hasn't cleared the bank yet, but we authorized payment to the credit card for the remaining balance, which means we are almost half way through our debt and only have the SUV and my student loans left to pay off. Oh my gosh! I drew a black line through the credit card on our poster-sized budget on the kitchen wall. It's amazing to know that we will be able to nearly double the SUV payment for the next few months and then it will be paid off - about a year and a half early!
It's already nice knowing that the Honda is paid off, but when the Expedition gets paid off, it will be amazing. I can't even begin to describe how it feels to know that we won't have any car payments. Yeah, we have 10 year old vehicles, but they're ours. I can't fathom paying $300 or more a month just to have a new car. It's never been important to me to have the newest, coolest car. Plus, being my practical self, I just can't see paying for a new car that depreciates almost by half the minute I drive it off the lot. What a horrible waste of money that is. And, as evidenced by our journey to financial freedom, we don't waste money any more!
Ah, to be debt free..... We're nearly half way there in just 18 months. In another 18 months, I'll be posting, "We're Debt Free!"
It's already nice knowing that the Honda is paid off, but when the Expedition gets paid off, it will be amazing. I can't even begin to describe how it feels to know that we won't have any car payments. Yeah, we have 10 year old vehicles, but they're ours. I can't fathom paying $300 or more a month just to have a new car. It's never been important to me to have the newest, coolest car. Plus, being my practical self, I just can't see paying for a new car that depreciates almost by half the minute I drive it off the lot. What a horrible waste of money that is. And, as evidenced by our journey to financial freedom, we don't waste money any more!
Ah, to be debt free..... We're nearly half way there in just 18 months. In another 18 months, I'll be posting, "We're Debt Free!"
Friday, January 14, 2011
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:
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!
- 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
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!
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Our Journey to Financial Freedom
I came across "The Dave Ramsey Show" on the radio a couple months ago in a roundabout way. We had a cool station that played a fairly eclectic mix of music, but unfortunately it didn't last (as with all the cool stations). Of course, the channel remains preset in my car, and one day I was flipping through and hit the button, even though I knew it had changed to the FM version of the local conservative radio show. Obviously, this is not a station I would normally listen to. On this particular day, I hit the button out of habit and because there was nothing good on any of the other stations, I figured I would listen to what the conservatives were saying to get a good laugh. Well, interestingly enough, there was a guy talking about money. I like money, so I listened. He was pretty down-to-earth, and everything he talked about made sense. Not just, "Yeah that could work," but real common sense. I'm not usually in my car between 11am and 1pm, but after that day, if I was, I was listening to the money guy.
So fast forward a couple months. After listening to snippets of Dave Ramsey, I finally checked out his website, and Howard bought his book, "The Total Money Makeover" (TMMO) on Amazon for me. I devoured that book in about a day and a half so that Howard could take it and read it while he worked in the field. We talked about it every night that week! And when he came back, we made our plan and prepared for our journey to be debt-free! I won't go over Dave's book in detail, but I plan to record our progress in becoming financially free as we complete the Baby Steps in Dave's book.
Our official start date was September 1, 2009. We got our paychecks and started! This is a really good time for us to start - Howard has been getting a bonus (which will go through the end of this month) and we both received publication bonuses from work for an extra $500. Talk about a good start.
Baby Step #1 - Save $1000
I have been reading saving and debt reduction articles from a long time; like I said, I like money. So we had a small "emergency fund" of $600 already. Dave says $1000, so we're working on it. We wanted to make a start on Baby Step #2 right away, so we're taking care of #1 with our paycheck in the middle of the month. We will have our emergency fund started and can really get moving on the exciting stuff!
Baby Step #2 - Pay off all debts (other than the house)
So, this is the fun (and hard) part. We had 4 small bills that have just been hanging around and we just haven't been able "find" money to pay. So we knocked those out immediately and it felt so good to cross those off the list! We have two more things under $1000 to pay and will take care of those by October. Then we'll get the long haul of debt payment. We have 2 cars, 4 credit cards, and student loans for a grand total of about $65,000. How insane is that?
So Dave recommends paying off your bills from the lowest balance to the highest balance. Ok - that sounds good to me. I've paid off all my bills before, but I had used the system where you pay the bills from the highest interest rate first, then work your way through that way. I see Dave's point about going from lowest balance to highest. You get some quick results at the beginning to keep yourself motivated - that makes such a difference! I'm willing to give his sytem a chance.
Creating a Budget
This is one thing that we already had, but it just wasn't detailed enough. We had the main bills listed, but we didn't really plan for putting gas in the car or for miscellaneous expenses. We always just left some money over each paycheck, but we always used it up and then ended up charging gas or charging all that stuff we "needed" at Target. Not good. So Howard and I set up a new detailed budget where we account for every bit of money coming in each paycheck/month and know exactly where it's going to go before we even have our checks in our hands. We have money that we set aside each month for other expenses, like car repairs, car registration, household goods, or home repairs. It feels so freeing already! We use only cash (or a debit card) and all the credit cards are out of our wallets!
Next Steps
We had a great start out of the gate, but now we wait until our next paychecks. The next step is to finish the $1000 emergency fund and the pay off the next bill on the list. After that, we'll pay one car off 2 months early! The we really get serious to keep our momentum going to get those last bills paid. Goal date (debt-free except for house) = February 2012.
So fast forward a couple months. After listening to snippets of Dave Ramsey, I finally checked out his website, and Howard bought his book, "The Total Money Makeover" (TMMO) on Amazon for me. I devoured that book in about a day and a half so that Howard could take it and read it while he worked in the field. We talked about it every night that week! And when he came back, we made our plan and prepared for our journey to be debt-free! I won't go over Dave's book in detail, but I plan to record our progress in becoming financially free as we complete the Baby Steps in Dave's book.
Our official start date was September 1, 2009. We got our paychecks and started! This is a really good time for us to start - Howard has been getting a bonus (which will go through the end of this month) and we both received publication bonuses from work for an extra $500. Talk about a good start.
Baby Step #1 - Save $1000
I have been reading saving and debt reduction articles from a long time; like I said, I like money. So we had a small "emergency fund" of $600 already. Dave says $1000, so we're working on it. We wanted to make a start on Baby Step #2 right away, so we're taking care of #1 with our paycheck in the middle of the month. We will have our emergency fund started and can really get moving on the exciting stuff!
Baby Step #2 - Pay off all debts (other than the house)
So, this is the fun (and hard) part. We had 4 small bills that have just been hanging around and we just haven't been able "find" money to pay. So we knocked those out immediately and it felt so good to cross those off the list! We have two more things under $1000 to pay and will take care of those by October. Then we'll get the long haul of debt payment. We have 2 cars, 4 credit cards, and student loans for a grand total of about $65,000. How insane is that?
So Dave recommends paying off your bills from the lowest balance to the highest balance. Ok - that sounds good to me. I've paid off all my bills before, but I had used the system where you pay the bills from the highest interest rate first, then work your way through that way. I see Dave's point about going from lowest balance to highest. You get some quick results at the beginning to keep yourself motivated - that makes such a difference! I'm willing to give his sytem a chance.
Creating a Budget
This is one thing that we already had, but it just wasn't detailed enough. We had the main bills listed, but we didn't really plan for putting gas in the car or for miscellaneous expenses. We always just left some money over each paycheck, but we always used it up and then ended up charging gas or charging all that stuff we "needed" at Target. Not good. So Howard and I set up a new detailed budget where we account for every bit of money coming in each paycheck/month and know exactly where it's going to go before we even have our checks in our hands. We have money that we set aside each month for other expenses, like car repairs, car registration, household goods, or home repairs. It feels so freeing already! We use only cash (or a debit card) and all the credit cards are out of our wallets!
Next Steps
We had a great start out of the gate, but now we wait until our next paychecks. The next step is to finish the $1000 emergency fund and the pay off the next bill on the list. After that, we'll pay one car off 2 months early! The we really get serious to keep our momentum going to get those last bills paid. Goal date (debt-free except for house) = February 2012.
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