Dumping Debt with Dave Ramsey/DECEMBER - Page 2

[phathui5]

Originally Posted by LilMama23

We finished Baby Step #1 yesterday! I am so excited that we are finally on our way. Now it's time to tackle our debt - at the same time as remodeling our new house to get it ready to move into. This is going to be a long, slow process for us, but I'm excited to finally get started.

Congratulations!

[mom2dea]

Wtg everyone, it seems like lots of people are actrully meeting goals . I had to pay off best buy now or the money would of be spent so thats what I did . I am so glad to be one debt lighter .

I can not wait to see how everyone does . Anyone have estimated goals on things like debts payoff , emergency fund , and the like ?

[ShawnMarie]

I'm happy I just paid off $1500 in energy/yearly bills that I had put aside month to month in our Money Market. No way I could meet those bills without my monthly "bill" to myself.

Also happy 'cause we are expecting in June and so far I've paid ZERO for all the baby clothes, crib bumpers, boppi and all that for the baby. I so love Freecycle. On to learning how to make my own diapers.... with losing DH income when the baby comes, we need to stretch my paycheck as far as it will go.

Congrats to all of you making progress. We are holding steady and at Christmas that is something to be proud of.

[phathui5]

Goals: Dh and I talked about it at dinner last night and we're aiming to be done Baby Step 2 by October 2008. We have to pay off:

$ 548 Capital One
$1100 Best Buy
$1400 Van loan
$2200 HSBC Retail Services
$5000 Truck loan

[annethcz]

I'm going to join in. I read the November thread, and I am impressed by how well some of you are doing. I haven't read TMM, but I am familar with DR, other financial writers, and the snowball concept.

Quite honestly, I'm really embarrassed that I'm participating. We used to have very good savings and never carried a balance on our CCs. But we moved to a new house 6 months ago and have a bigger mortgage. I thought that we had budgeted well enough and that the bigger mortgage wouldn't be a problem. We even had several thousand dollars in savings, but we used it to make a few improvements around the house after we moved in. So now, rather than having a couple of months worth of living expenses in the bank, we have almost nothing and a WHOLE bunch of credit card debt. I feel SO stupid and cliche.

Anyway, DH and I sat down again last night and made up a budget. We're definitely not going to be using the CCs now. And I guess we're working on BS #1- the emergency fund.

Right now we're at $51/1000. Crap. I just want to hide.

[AngelBee]

:

[alleyoop]

Originally Posted by ShawnMarie

Congrats to all of you making progress. We are holding steady and at Christmas that is something to be proud of.

We are too. I'll pay off the last of the cc's with my bonus, and will find out how much of a bonus I am getting on Monday. Hopefully enough for the CC's and some money into the emergency fund.

We are up to date on all the taxes, which for us, is a big deal. DH always procrastinates on his estimated taxes but this year he has made all the payments and has the $ for the next one. I'm still trying to get him to sit down and really plan out how he spends money but he is super resistant. He'll do it but not stick to it. I'm still happy that all the taxes are paid because that means we will start next year NOT IN THE HOLE.

Good work everyone! You are all an inspiration!

[DesireeH]

Ann- Dont feel embarrassed mama....a lot of us are in the same boat. We had 30K on CC quite a few years ago but paid that all off with the sale of our first home. Had no cc debt for 3 years and I thought "oh ya!" but then we got the stupid ARM too big mortgage and here we are again. Last year we didnt have any CC even. This year DH took a 12K pay cut by "moving up" in his company because it put him on salary and eliminated overtime. He is home more and we CAN make it work if we cut out a lot. So there are benefits and negatives. But anyways, our goal is to be out of debt by March 09. We have:
$360 Amazon card
$3100 Discover
$4800 DH's truck loan
$10,000 Citi (0% until 09/08)

We get around 5K back for tax return usually and dh is doing a side job this month. We were planning on paying off the small card and his truck with the tax return. Then selling his truck for around 7000, getting $3000 car and putting the rest to pay off Discover completely and put 1K towards the big one and having 9K ish left to pay off between spring 08 and spring 09. We'll have to figure out what to do with our lease when it's up......

[D_McG]

Originally Posted by annethcz

we're at $51/1000

**delurking**

Can someone explain what this means? I see it above, too. Thanks!

[mtm]

D_McG, that means she's saved $51 out of the 1000 emergency fund. Good job everyone, sounds like December is off to a good start for a lot of you. I'm struggling to pay cash for Christmas. Dh and I decided what we want is too expensive for Christmas (our tv is dying a slow painful death) so we're giving each other money to start a tv fund. that's a big step for us, before we just would have bought it on credit.

[D_McG]

thank you!!

[amis2girls]

subbing/lurking...hi Desiree

We are on steps 1 & 2...working up an EF while paying off some medical bills that aren't staying away while I'm working up my savings account.

Don't know if we have much debt as opposed to just blowing money on payday to the point that we were paying utilities and mortgage at the last possible moment.

Anyway, glad to be here.

[ShawnMarie]

Originally Posted by mom2dea

I can not wait to see how everyone does . Anyone have estimated goals on things like debts payoff , emergency fund , and the like ?

We have very specific goals and have met several of them in 2007. Our EF is fully funded at $1K, but we also have a MM account that is kept at $3K to cover insurance deductibles and other "non-emergency" emergencies. Right now we are down to only $2.5K because of car repairs and insurance payments but building it up is the first thing we do before we go back to debt repayment.

Dave's $1K EF is a great place to start and it felt so good to reach that goal, but for us it was not enough. Over the last 3 years I have had to shell out over $3K a year in home repairs/car repairs and that is why we set aside such a large amount. It happened again this year and if we hadn't set our sights so high, we'd have been back on the credit cards. We've been cash only since last year for everything.

Our other 2007 goals were to pay off DH's Jeep which we did. Pay cash for our July wedding which we did. Pay off the credit cards - we've got one down and 4 to go.

Right now we are working hard to pay off my car. It is our largest out of pocket monthly expense next to the house and having it paid off will put us in great shape for when the baby comes. There is about $4K left on that and we want it done ASAP. After that it is hitting the credit cards one at a time - one is within easy reach, the others aren't. And then building up a 3-6 month reserve. Going to be a long time coming for all that on only my income though, but we have faith that we'll make it.

I encourage anyone who hasn't read TMM to do so because it is very motivating and makes a lot of sense. I don't like the FPU stuff because it seems to preachy, but I do like TMM. I even gave my 63 year old spendthrift father a copy and he is now working on reducing his debt also. (Go Dad!)

We don't follow Dave to the letter, but even if you just put a few of his pricipals to work (The EF especially) you will be so much more in control of your money. The most important thing is to know what your debt/income/spending habits are and to make a plan.

[TattooedMama]

Originally Posted by alleyoop

We are up to date on all the taxes, which for us, is a big deal. DH always procrastinates on his estimated taxes but this year he has made all the payments and has the $ for the next one. I'm still trying to get him to sit down and really plan out how he spends money but he is super resistant. He'll do it but not stick to it. I'm still happy that all the taxes are paid because that means we will start next year NOT IN THE HOLE.

Good work everyone! You are all an inspiration!

Hi alleyoop! And everyone else joining! :

We are still working on paying our estimated tax payments for 2006. But the big thing about having this plan and a budget for us meant that...
1.) We actully have the $500 a month to PAY THE STUPID TAXES
2.) We are setting the money aside for this year's taxes too

That's a huge step for us! Before marrying me DP was "working under the table" a lot so we had some serious catching up to do to get him legit as far as taxes go.
Way to go everyone on setting out their financial goals, both for this month and coming up in 2008!
We paid off one credit card in October, one in November and for us in December it will be our evil Best Buy card!
Last late November when I was 36 weeks pregnant we had no savings and we had 2 major appliances ( the washer and dishwasher) go out within 48 hours of each other. I was beside myself. So we went and got our first credit card. I am so thankful that we found the TMM BEFORE we got a whole bunch more credit cards, or additional debt.
Our January snowball pay off will be the small bank loan we took out to pay the homebirth MW for ds#3.
Then it's $6000 on our Toyota Sienna and our student loans ( : $10-$13,000?)

[mom2dea]

Originally Posted by TattooedMama

our evil Best Buy card!

Glad I am not the only one that thought that was an Evil CC ! LOL

[mom2dea]

Originally Posted by ShawnMarie

We have very specific goals and have met several of them in 2007. Our EF is fully funded at $1K, but we also have a MM account that is kept at $3K to cover insurance deductibles and other "non-emergency" emergencies. Right now we are down to only $2.5K because of car repairs and insurance payments but building it up is the first thing we do before we go back to debt repayment.

Dave's $1K EF is a great place to start and it felt so good to reach that goal, but for us it was not enough. Over the last 3 years I have had to shell out over $3K a year in home repairs/car repairs and that is why we set aside such a large amount. It happened again this year and if we hadn't set our sights so high, we'd have been back on the credit cards. We've been cash only since last year for everything.

Our other 2007 goals were to pay off DH's Jeep which we did. Pay cash for our July wedding which we did. Pay off the credit cards - we've got one down and 4 to go.

Right now we are working hard to pay off my car. It is our largest out of pocket monthly expense next to the house and having it paid off will put us in great shape for when the baby comes. There is about $4K left on that and we want it done ASAP. After that it is hitting the credit cards one at a time - one is within easy reach, the others aren't. And then building up a 3-6 month reserve. Going to be a long time coming for all that on only my income though, but we have faith that we'll make it.

I encourage anyone who hasn't read TMM to do so because it is very motivating and makes a lot of sense. I don't like the FPU stuff because it seems to preachy, but I do like TMM. I even gave my 63 year old spendthrift father a copy and he is now working on reducing his debt also. (Go Dad!)

We don't follow Dave to the letter, but even if you just put a few of his pricipals to work (The EF especially) you will be so much more in control of your money. The most important thing is to know what your debt/income/spending habits are and to make a plan.

We usuallt repay back our savings as well befor going back to debt but this month we did not do that we spent 75.00 on a battery for DH car and this week instead of paying that back we payed off Best buy but thats cause we so wanted that card GONE . I am hoping to pay back the emergency fund ASAP though . Like you we are feeling like we need another 2-3 thousand set aside for emergencys cause we have an AC unit that will prob go out with in 2-3 yrs and a part on the Van thats going bad that it 500 in itself . I think that will be our goal come eb is upping the emergency fund .

[DesireeH]

Sold a sewing machine and serger today on Craigslist! WOOT....$175. I can pay for my car tags without dipping into my emergency fund! WOOT! Have a treadmill that is getting looked at tomorrow...that would be another $100 and that would go straight to the emergency fund. WOOT!

[SugarAndSun]

We are going to start selling off all the unwanted stuff too. Your treadmill though, in the winter, you may miss it on cold days.

We are looking to seriously downsize. We never had much and were happy that way, then when ds1 was born everything just exploded. :

[DesireeH]

It's kind of fun selling off all the stuff you never use anyways! I hate clutter. If it sits there and doesnt get used, I want it gone! LOL

I hate the treadmill. LOL I get SOOOOOOO bored staring at a wall. LOL I'd much rather go outside and take the kids/dogs for a walk! LOL (We are in California, so it never snows or anything).

I was going to sell the bread machine and then I started pricing it out and its much cheaper to just use the thing and make bread. So last night I made whole wheat pizza dough with it and we had pizzas. Tonight I made a loaf of bread for tomorrow's lunches too. Hopefully I keep up on it cause it saves a lot of money!

[sandygirl]

HI - is it okay if I join in here?

I'm working on BS2, with BS3 fully funded to 3 months due to various health issues.

I've made $1048 in the last 72 hours selling things {yard sale & ebay}, and it's all going toward the debt!