Dumping Debt with Dave Ramsey/DECEMBER - Page 3

[Daisie125]

$5/1000

Gotta start somewhere, right?

I have a few more holiday gifts to squeeze out (hopefully I can make all/most of them) I lost a few reciepts (which is SO unlike me, and I'm really mad at myself) so I'm not taking any money out of the checking account until those two things clear because I'm not 100% on how much $$ they were, and I don't want to bounce anything.

I'm going to be selling some things on craigslist this week, hopefully, and it's going straight to the emegency fund.

[TattooedMama]

Originally Posted by Daisie125

$5/1000

Gotta start somewhere, right?
I'm going to be selling some things on craigslist this week, hopefully, and it's going straight to the emegency fund.

YES!!! We all started somewhere.
Glad to have everyone new that is chiming in.

[phathui5]

[QUOTE=Daisie125;9896640]$5/1000

Gotta start somewhere, right?
QUOTE]

This time last month, we had $83 on our emergency fund. Now it's done.

[DesireeH]

Welcome Dawn! A month ago I had $3 in mine....definitely gotta start somewhere!

[SugarAndSun]

It's true, there is no where to start except where you are. At least we are all making the change and on the road to our Total Money Makeovers.

[annethcz]

Originally Posted by SugarAndSun

It's true, there is no where to start except where you are.

So true. Thank you for that.

[Maggi315]

WE did something fun today,we took a mason jar, cut up colored paper slips, put them in a ziplock with a pen next to it, and wrote: money saved/not spent. The goal for thenext month is to fill out a slip whenever we DON'T spend money, or save money, like on coupons, or not getting that soda, not eating out, packing snack, buy one, getone free, we'll see how it goes.

Thought it would be fun for the kids to participate and encourage them to be more frugal.

Also my 12yo who is homeschooled is working 2 days per week babysitting and earning about $20/week, plus she is working over the weekends to pay for her ice skating time (she competes and it is an expensive sport). I am so proud, she is also making slings and other crafts and I give them to all my new mamas.

My 17yo is working at the skating rink and is paying us $150/month that she owes for car insurance, cellphone and past due money we lent her so i am also proud of her. She also has been driving me around since I'm not supposed to and went and helped at a birth this morning!

So today has been a pretty good day, looks like we will have all bills from last month paid, and husbands check is here tomorrow, hoping it's a nice fat one (he's totally commission!!!)

[Azuralea]

Originally Posted by DesireeH

Ann- Dont feel embarrassed mama....a lot of us are in the same boat.

:

Please don't be embarrassed. A lot of us have been there and we are just at different points along the journey. It is hard.

[mom2dea]

Ok I have some questions ..Ie I need some help...lol

What bills come 1-2 times a yr ? We want to add these bills up and / by 12 and come up with an amount to put aside for them .
Do you do this ?
Did you start doing this befor your debt was paid off ????

Those that send there kids to school do you put aside money for a school fund ? We have school fees, supplies , field trips , 2 book fairs a yr , year books , teacher presnts , little fees here and there for diffrent things , authors come to the school and the kids want there books , birthday book club , family night 2 times a yr , PTO fee . Would you take all these fees and / them by 12 and put them into a seprate account ?

Thanks for the help my mind has been spining thinking about these things . I want to start the knew yr off on a good start . I mean I want debt paid off too but my thought is if we can't pay for these things then won't we have to dip into emergency fund to pay for them ?

ok any help with this would be wonderfull . thanks everyone !

[DesireeH]

Sarah,
I'm starting to budget in yearly expenses as well. Term life insurance (we pay it one annual lump), car tags on both vehicles, things like that. I will probably add that to my emergency fund. My oldest is in school but we dont really give the school any money. LOL They take taxes on my house for the school here....and I have my ATM card set up so that 1% goes to the local school (you pick which school.) Occasionally I bring supplies or bottled waters on "walk-a-thon" day but other than that I never buy the book fair stuff, the clubs, the shirts. But I would include that in your budget if it is something you regularly do.

I can now say that my emergency fund is fully funded! YAY! (DH is doing a job on the side) The stupid bank puts a hold on the check but as soon as that goes through, I'll have my emergency fund (+ life insurance that is due next month) will be in the emergency fund totalling $1200.

I can also pay off my Amazon card ($360) and we're putting $730 towards Discover leaving a balance on that one of $2367. (So we'll have to work on snowballing that, Dh's truck, and then the big card 10K.)

We are on our way! YAY!

[mom2dea]

WTG desiree on getting things paid off !!! Its a great feeling isn't ?

I hate sending money to the school . School fees are a have to your not alound not to do them they are 15.0 per child . We get the dumb school supply list for each child but I do shop sales for a good 90% of it . Do you do year books at your school ? Presents are cookies at christmas roses at the end of the yr so simple and cheep and will prob stop once they are in middle school . Bookfairs I try to give them 5-10 dallors each to get 1 book as we live in a rich school district and almost everyone spends money at the bookfair and inturn my kids feel so left out . We do none of the other fundraisers though . I try to do the Author books if I can and it sounds likea cute book but if we can't fund it they have the option to take money they have earned for the book . The bigest things I hate are the PTO fee (Every yr WHY ????????) and the family nights cause hey are expensive and hard to do with 6 people in the family on a budget . Oh and I wish teachers would plan out field trips for the yr and tell you up front the estimated cost and time frame they were comming in so you could budget them better .

ok vent over ...lol

[Heather423]

.

Originally Posted by mom2dea

Ok I have some questions ..Ie I need some help...lol

What bills come 1-2 times a yr ? We want to add these bills up and / by 12 and come up with an amount to put aside for them .
Do you do this ?
Did you start doing this befor your debt was paid off ???? If you have a home, house insurance, property taxes, oil, car insurance, car registrations (some call them tags), car inspections. You calculate this when you are drafting up your budget, before you start with step one. You can also add things like clothing and such that aren't necessarily monthly expenses. I have 2 savings, one for BEF and one for occasional expenses, (not much in there now, just trying to get our budget to work). I have them linked on the online banking, so I plan on sweeping the money weekly from checking to savings, then sweeping it back to checking when the bills are due. Hope that helps

Those that send there kids to school do you put aside money for a school fund ? We have school fees, supplies , field trips , 2 book fairs a yr , year books , teacher presnts , little fees here and there for diffrent things , authors come to the school and the kids want there books , birthday book club , family night 2 times a yr , PTO fee . Would you take all these fees and / them by 12 and put them into a seprate account ? Yes

Thanks for the help my mind has been spining thinking about these things . I want to start the knew yr off on a good start . I mean I want debt paid off too but my thought is if we can't pay for these things then won't we have to dip into emergency fund to pay for them ? you should budget for them so you don't have to dip into your EF is the theory!

ok any help with this would be wonderfull . thanks everyone !

[DesireeH]

They do walk-a-thons to fund field trips here (but the field trips they take are all free...like walk to the firestation or the local science center thing, etc!) LOL My son is only in kindy so they dont do yearbooks. He loves the library so I just tell him he can either pick a book through the book club thing OR we can go to the library and pick out 10 books. He's young enough that that still works! LOL They dont do the family nights here. That sounds tough! As he gets in older grades I'm sure it will get more expensive. I'm hoping to be out of debt by then so I can help more! LOL

[Ary99]

Okay, struggling here in December with the holidays. I'm trying to make a few handmade gifts for friend I know will be getting me things (I wish I had the time or inclination to say it was out of the goodness of my heart).

I have over spent some, like ordering photo books I have worked on all year as a gift for our famiy (i had NO idea how pricey that would get!)

Also, the timing of things isn't what I thought it would be and now I am just sitting around waiting for payday (yes, he got paid on the 30th)

I can't be alone. Who else?

[DesireeH]

That's hard mama.

We dont celebrate Christmas. I have no idea how we would afford it if we did.

[phathui5]

Those that send there kids to school do you put aside money for a school fund ?

Well, we homeschool, but now that our $1000 emergency fund is done, saving up for next year's homeschooling expenses is a budget item for me.

[Contrariety]

YAY! The Total Money Makeover is FINALLY in at the library! I've had it on reserve for months. I just got back from picking it up and hope to be joining you ladies very soon!

[Red]

Ok, time to try again. We did horribly and wonderfully last year. Horribly because we have $20 of $1000 for our savings, and more cc debt than before. (dental issues!)

Wonderfully because my dd got married, other 3 dd's were in teh wedding, new clothes for everyone, etc, and we only went $400 into debt.

Still, I want to see teh end of all cc debt by 2010. We owe about $10,000.

I'd sell something, but I can't imagine what....though that serger is calling to me now. I never use the thing.

Hmmmmm.......

If you're doing it successfully, good for you! Congratulations.

If you have kids and do Christmas, I'll be thinking of you! My kids are older and this year, we're cutting way, way back. Instead of a pile of gifts, there'll be one or two and a nice stocking. Got Jammie pants for everyone today for $7.00 a piece, so, I've started!

$20/$1000. At least I started, right?

[aircantu1]

I'm still in -- and still working on our last debt (except for the house) - my husband's car.

I was able to pay an extra $784.01 in November and an extra $1800.74 in October. Unfortunately we still owe $13,000 and I won't be able to pay anything extra this month thanks to Christmas and the midwife bill -- baby #3 is due in February and we owe her $2000.

Congrats to everyone on your progress!

[Contrariety]

ALRIGHT! I'm in! It's going to be very slow going for us. We are currently trying to save up to move into an apartment (we're with family right now). And having a lot of trouble, for some reason sticking with it. BUT I'm totally focused now by Dave! So my plan right now is start my $1000 by selling, selling, selling! I dunno if I can get $100 just selling stuff, but I can get off to a good start. All other money left in our budget after the minimum on bills will be going to our Apartment fund. After that's done, I'm all over our credit card! And then it's student loans.

We don't have much wiggle room at all in our budget after rent and bills. Our situation is sticky and me getting a PT job isn't exactly feasible right now... though things are looking up. I have been corresponding with a local Apartment managing firm and as soon as they have an opening, I can hopefully get a position there, managing a small apartment complex for free rent...which would be the most AMAZING burden lifted for us! Also, if I got
the job, we'd be moving close enough to my old employer that I could work for them again... and that job would be very flexible PT work.

Thanks for listening!

I'm off to ebay!