Yes, ANOTHER book post! I finished about 3 books this past week, but this book I had actually been reading since around November. I may have mentioned this before, but Rich and I enrolled in the online "Financial Peace University" course around November. For the package we paid for, we received 16 weeks of online access to the online videos for the course, as well as downloading the workbook that accompanies the course (and the audio version of all of the video sessions), and they also send you Dave's book that is supplemental reading for the course.
A little background info - Dave Ramsey is a Christian financial expert whose basic underlying goal is to help every man and woman get out of debt, get an emergency fund, get a savings plan, have a secure and substantial retirement fund, and be successful in life.
Rich and I took this course together, and I HIGHLY recommend it for everyone - whether you are single, married, divorced, old, young...you will benefit! One thing that was never really touched on in our early marriage classes were finances and the importance of being on the same page. As Dave Ramsey says, in every marriage there is almost always one "free spirit" and one "nerd." I'm sure you can guess which one I am and which one Rich is. :-) That affects everything from spending to budgeting to...well, EVERYTHING. I wish we would have done this sooner. Because, just like in raising children, buying a house, or any other major decision, finances MUST be done together and both spouses must be on the same page in order to be successful. It CANNOT be the philosophy of "one person handles it all and the other one is in the dark."
I won't go into detail, but as we moved to Colorado, grew our family, etc... we were stupid and ran into debt. The largest of our debt is a personal loan my mom extended to us for house repairs. Buying a "fixer upper" is fantastic if you get a great deal and can do most of the work yourself, which is true for us. However, if I could go back and redo it, I would have NOT taken a loan and just "lived" with the mess and issues for a while longer and paid cash for everything. Anyway, for a long time this debt has bothered me b/c I never had debt. Even living in the 2nd most expensive (or maybe most expensive) state in the U.S. (Hawaii) while making only $19,000...I always lived on a tight budget and never carried a credit card balance or debt of any kind. It BOTHERS me to have debt. So, I am VERY thankful for this course! :-)
The book is fabulous and even if you cannot take the Financial Peace University course, you need to read this book. Even if you aren't in debt...even if you already have a good savings account - READ THE BOOK. Dave sets up 7 easy steps for financial success.
The first step is to have a $1,000 emergency fund. Once this is set up, you CUT UP EVERY CREDIT CARD. Then you pay off all of your debts in a structured way, which Dave calls the "Debt Snowball", starting with the smallest debt first. Then, once you get rid of all debt (outside of your mortgage), you save 3-6 months of money that will pay all of your bills, so that in case something should happen, you know you have that safety net to carry you through until something else comes along. VERY SMART - being the constant worrier I am, having safety nets are huge for me. Once you have that done, you start working simultaneously on saving for retirement, investing, and also saving for your child's college.
This course was a major blessing to us, and we have learned so much. We even learned some great things to help our children learn at an early age the importance of "give, save, spend" and how to raise them to be excellent stewards of what God has given them. This isn't a "get rich quick" course. It is all about making your money work for you, being a good steward of what God has given you, and later being able to give back to others as God has blessed.
I won't share our level of debt because I know my husband would KILL Me - and it's different for everyone. But I will say that we implemented our new "super strict" budget on January 1st. I set up our budget and did all of the math since I'm the nerdy "I love this stuff!" type of person but had Rich go over it all with me. We had 3 areas of debt and with the budget we live on (Rich has a good job but we aren't making heaps of money, we will soon have 3 kids, and I don't "work" at a "paying job" to stay home with our children right now), I figured it would take us 4.7 years to pay everything off, with the first debt in the "debt snowball" taking about 19 months to pay off. The Lord started to immediately bless us with a completely UNEXPECTED bonus, a job promotion for Rich, and just a few extra things here and there. What should have taken 19 months looks like it will be gone in 6 months. That's right...6 months. We are psyched to see all that God is doing and is teaching us!
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