As some of you may know David and I have been following Dave Ramsey's plan "Total Money Makeover". For those of you who are not familiar with him, he is a financial counselor and his ministry has done wonders for us, especially with us only being married for a short period of time. The main goal of this plan is to be debt free and at the time this sounded too good to be true. We heard about him from some dear friends of ours from Waco when we were visiting one weekend. One conversation led from one thing to another and before we knew it our friends placed the "Total Money Makeover" in our hands and said "Take a look at it and if you like, keep it." So David started reading the book on an early Sunday afternoon and ended up reading the book within a matter of a few hours! We have been hooked ever since :-)
Within this plan there are 7 "Baby Step" and the first step is to set up an emergency fund of $1,000. At first I wasn't sure how David and I were going to do this since he is going to school full-time and my job only bringing in enough income for us to barely make it from month to month. Well we did some brainstorming and put our heads together on how we could budget our money better and slowly but surely we were able to have a little money left over at the end of every month. It took as about 6 months for us to accomplish this first goal but considering we had some major car repairs, I think we did well.
So within the last few weeks we submitted our tax return and received it and decided that we were going to start "Baby Step 2" which is paying off all of your debt smallest to largest. I know some may disagree with this method because you may say "What about the interest rate?" According to Dave Ramsey the best way to keep you motivated towards your goals is to see results and by paying off your smallest debt first this shows that you are making progress! I know that some of what I may be saying seems a bit unorthodox but there have been over 3 million people who have been following his plan and have been extremely successful.
Our first debt to pay off was my Capital One credit card. I called to close our account and when the rep asked what led me to close the account I said "Have you heard of Dave Ramsey?" Then she replied no and asked what you did" When I said you were an awesome financial counselor that has changed our lives" she exclaimed "oh wow, maybe I need to get to know him" which then lead me to giving her Dave Ramsey's website address to check out his ministry. I about died of excitement after I got off the phone! David and I are so thankful that God has put this resource in our hands to use because before this David and I would struggle on making it from month to month financially. I know this plan isn't for everyone but if this is something you are interested in you can go check out his website at www.daveramsey.com. This is just a way for David and I to share what joy this has brought to our lives and celebrate that God is in control of every little thing in your life, even money!
"The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is the slave to the lender." Proverbs 22:7
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