I’m sorry I haven’t been more diligent in posting. I have about two hours to myself on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays when I plan on doing most of my postings, but I have found those hours have been filled with other things these past two weeks. One thing I have been doing a lot of is reading
A lot of you know that I enjoy personal finance. I just finished reading a book by Dave Ramsey called The Total Money Makeover. When I read books like these and they talk about debt elimination programs, I kind of wish we were in debt so I could follow through with one (totally crazy, I know). If you don’t know what a debt elimination schedule is, it is organizing all your debts from the smallest to largest amounts and then paying the minimum on all except the first (the smallest). You use all your discretionary income to pay that debt down as quickly as possible. Once that one is paid off, you move to the next one with all the money you were paying along with the minimum payment until that one is paid off and you keep moving down the line until they are all paid in full. I once spent two hours working on a debt elimination schedule for a stranger I met in a personal finance forum on the internet. If any of you want one, just give me the word.
Since John and I don’t have any debt beside our mortgage, I decided that I could use the principle of a debt elimination program to create a savings program that implements the idea of intense focus. John’s yearly raise kicks in the first of October and so I was re-evaluating our budget and making some changes. John and I spent some time discussing it the other night and are really excited to follow through with our plan in order to reach some of our goals.
For anyone who would like the abbreviated version of the Total Money Makeover (which I thought was really good), just read the Church’s free pamphlet, One For the Money. If you would like any one-on-one help with budgeting or debt elimination, I would be happy to help.
Jenni
2 comments:
I read that book a few months ago and I loved it. Ironically, I'm not really in a position to follow it right now as we have just taken on some serious debt by opening our own business, but I really believe in the principles in that program. We could have never taken this giant leap if we were bogged down with debt (before now our only debt was our mortgage).
Living without debt is freedom!
I read it about 6 months ago. I thought it was great! And I totally understand what you mean about wishing you were in debt so you could eliminate it using a credit schedule. Mike and I would be great at something like that. Probably why we don't have any debt in the first place.
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