We're getting a Total Money Makeover!

I recently read "The Total Money Makeover" by Dave Ramsey.  It was on my list to read something written by him this year.  I didn't have any real intention of doing anything with it; I was just curious about his methodology. 

Let me just say: I wish I had read this so much sooner!  I was surprised at how simple his philosophies are and how accessible his writing is, and I have drunk the Dave Ramsey kool-aid, people!

Matthew and I feel like we're pretty diligent with our finances.  For the mot part, we've always seen eye to eye where money is concerned.  Our parents raised us with similar perspectives and attitudes regarding finances (a huge blessing and gift, to say the least).  We're certainly not perfect and know there's room for growth, but this book definitely put everything into perspective for us. 

If you haven't read it, the basic idea is there are 7 baby steps for a total money makeover:

Nothing about what Dave says is radical or earth-shattering.  All of what he says is against the grain, though.  And, as with everything, you have to take what he says and use it in a way that will fit your life.

For instance, Dave says to sell your cars and stop paying so much on them so that you can get rid of debt faster.  While I'm not opposed to that, I'm also not jumping in 100%.  For one of our cars, we would be upside down on it if we sold it.  It makes more sense for us to pay it off than to sell it.  The other car is our minivan that was a very calculated cost that we're comfortable about having.  Don't get me wrong: we don't love paying for our cars every month.  But we're certainly not stretched too far because of our cars.  So we're okay keeping both of them (with the intention of keeping them for a very long time and neither of which did we buy brand new).  Dave might say we don't have what he calls "gazelle" focus, but we're okay with that. 

In practically every other way, we're on board with what he says!  Step 1 was already done for us - check!  That was easy.  We're currently in Step 2 (like most other people). 

To help us pay off all our debt (which is mostly our cars) in record time, we are taking the effort to stick to a mostly strict monthly zero-budget (assigning every dollar to go somewhere so that it's all "spent" when the new month rolls around).  This is a new thing for us.  We've always kept a loose budget and try to live within our means, but we've never gone over it with a fine-tooth comb every month and only allowed ourselves to spend however much at any given time. 

March has been our first month doing this, and, with the end of the month upon us, I have to say it's really changed a lot of our perspective and mentality regarding our finances.  I'm honestly so surprised.  Dare I say it's almost fun, like a game, to stay within the confines we've given ourselves?!  Having the budget has made us think more about each purchase we make and whether it's necessary or not. 

I downloaded the Every Dollar app on my phone, and we've been using that to keep up-to-date on our budget and track spending, which has been incredibly helpful.  It showed us that, yes, we CAN tithe 10% every month without it putting us in the red!

It feels so good to be telling our money where it's going instead of letting it tell us what we can and cannot do each month. 

With our current plan and debt snowball (if you're not familiar with this, you can read more about it here), we are on track to have ALL OUR DEBT paid off in 2.5 years!  You guys, I wouldn't have believed it if you'd told me that just 3 months ago.  I would have probably laughed in your face and said a very sarcastic "OKKKKK".  And yet, here we are, finding more and more ways to cut out unnecessary spending so that we can attack our debt head on. 

When I first told Matthew about the whole 7 step process after reading the book, he was kind of middle-of-the-road about it, not 100% in but not 100% out either.  And then we crunched some very realistic and DOABLE numbers for our finances to see how long it would take to pay off all our debt using Dave's debt snowball method.  Knowing we could have it ALL done within 2.5 years sold him on it. 

Being able to make great headway with our finances because we're not constantly fighting debt is a great freedom that we're SO excited about.  I'm really really really excited about where God is going to take us with all of this!