Dumping Debt and Building Wealth with Dave Ramsey~ MARCH - Page 11

[excitedtobeamom]

Jaime-Here is a very healthy bread recipe that I use. I buy the yeast, gluten, sunflower seeds, and flour in bulk. I just use the bread maker for the mixing and first rise. It is good and healthy. I don't usually use room temp ingrediants and it turns out fine.

Multigrain Bread

¾ c. Buttermilk
½ c. Water
1 Egg
2 T. Oil
2 T. Honey
1 ½ t. Salt
2½ c. whole wheat flour (I have been using 1½ c. whole wheat and 1 c. whole wheat pastry)
½ c. multigrain cereal (I use Bob’s Mills 10 Grain and add millet, amaranth and flax)
¼ c. raw sunflower seeds
3 T. gluten
2 t. active dry yeast

I place room temp ingredients into the bread machine, dough cycle. Then knead 10 times, shape and let rise until doubled in a warm place. Bake at 350° for 35 to 40 minutes. If you brush the crust with water it gets a chewier crust.

[Purple*Lotus]

Originally Posted by Ary99

Ok, infrequent poster, but avid reader here. I haven't had any updates, but since our tax refund, I'm happy to report I have paid off the following:

Bank of America: just finished paying them the remaining $2999.96.

Good bye Citicard: paid them $700

The rest went to buying some clothes for the whole family and saving for a vacation we have in May. It went fast.

Now, I am focusing on paying off our van. We just have the one car payment, but DH's salary was just cut by $12,000 a year, so things are tighter than they ever been. I can't complain, we are still very blessed, but it's frustrating to see his hard work not only not being rewarded, but seeing the salary actually go down (he's in the mortgage business)

Getting it done, ladies, getting it done.

You have been doing great so far!

Originally Posted by Kierdan'sMom

Job update: He didn't get it We are both upset as he has the skills but then flunks in real life situations...He did worse this time than last on the same test. BUT, the good news is they offered him a helper position that will still give us about 1000$ in income. It means he now has to ask his union bus. mgr to find him work before the end of the school year so we can keep going, but at least the bills stay paid without any new debts now which is a positive!

Sorry he did not get the job he wanted

Originally Posted by kerc

urgh. I got a speeding ticket this morning -- the police officer was a complete jerk about it, even though I wasn't paying attention and admitted to speeding.

And we got two parking tickets over the weekend. urgh. On Sundays we move to the other side of the street for parking and this Sunday we forgot. grrr.

So I'm ticked at myself because both were my fault.

That totally stinks! I hate it when I do something like that, like the time I lost a bill and had a late fee. Makes me crazy

Originally Posted by excitedtobeamom

Jaime-Here is a very healthy bread recipe that I use. I buy the yeast, gluten, sunflower seeds, and flour in bulk. I just use the bread maker for the mixing and first rise. It is good and healthy. I don't usually use room temp ingrediants and it turns out fine.

Multigrain Bread

¾ c. Buttermilk
½ c. Water
1 Egg
2 T. Oil
2 T. Honey
1 ½ t. Salt
2½ c. whole wheat flour (I have been using 1½ c. whole wheat and 1 c. whole wheat pastry)
½ c. multigrain cereal (I use Bob’s Mills 10 Grain and add millet, amaranth and flax)
¼ c. raw sunflower seeds
3 T. gluten
2 t. active dry yeast

I place room temp ingredients into the bread machine, dough cycle. Then knead 10 times, shape and let rise until doubled in a warm place. Bake at 350° for 35 to 40 minutes. If you brush the crust with water it gets a chewier crust.

Thanks! That sounds really good!

[lizziebits]

Getting on the Wagon

Hi All,

I just bought the Total Money Makeover book. I know paying for it was probably my first mistake, but I've been trying to get it out of our library forever and its always out!

I am all fired up to do this, as is my DH. Snowballing our debt may be a bit of a challenge, as we don't have much "little" debt, and our budget is already pretty frugal.

Here is where we are:

BS0 -- N/A
BS1 -- $1000 Emergency Fund. Done! Yay!
BS2 -- $30 Blockbuster -- Must right check
$50 -- Library Fines -- Paid
$200 -- My parents (they wanted to purchase a new stove for us as a gift, gave us an amount and said if we wanted something more than that we could pay the balance. So we owe them the difference)
$18000 -- Student loans
$24000 -- 2nd Mortgage (we got this to avoid paying PMI)
BS3 -- Fully fund emergency fund. We'll need about $10,000 for 3 months worth of saving.
BS4 -- 15% to retirement. We actually currently put 7.5% away, as my husband is a teacher in Pennsylvania, and his retirement savings are matched twice (as in, matched by two different groups) up to 7.5%
BS5 -- DS has about $200 saved for college...
BS6 -- Pay off home. We'd love love love to be able to pay off this house before we move to our "forever" house. It seems like a stretch right now, but we shall see!

We're going to start using cash for everything to help us keep to our budget. We've always paid the credit cards every month, but I think we definitely spend more when it isn't cash. We can live pretty much on my husband's yearly salary, which means any extra money I make or he that he makes during the summer can go towards snowballing. Right now I work about 12 hours a week and watch a neighborhood boy before and after school and bring in about $700/month.

OK, here are some questions.

We plan on working first on our 2nd mortgage, as it is only $6000 more than the student loans and the interest rate is twice as high. Do you guys think this is a good idea?

I know in the book Dave Ramsey says to not worry about funding retirement until step 4. But, my husband thinks that because our contributions are essentially tripled, it would make sense to just keep contributing. Also, they retirement fund is pre-tax dollars. It would give us about $300 (before taxes) extra a month. Should we contribute or not?

Finally, I am starting nursing school in the fall. I will be taking some prerequisites this summer. It's a local community college, so its only $174/credit. Only. This summer's classes will come to about $1400. I'm assuming we should do our best to pay cash for these classes? Ahhh I'm so nervous to try to take that on.

I'm glad I found this thread. I'm nervous, but also excited!

[Purple*Lotus]

Originally Posted by lizziebits

I know in the book Dave Ramsey says to not worry about funding retirement until step 4. But, my husband thinks that because our contributions are essentially tripled, it would make sense to just keep contributing. Also, they retirement fund is pre-tax dollars. It would give us about $300 (before taxes) extra a month. Should we contribute or not?

Finally, I am starting nursing school in the fall. I will be taking some prerequisites this summer. It's a local community college, so its only $174/credit. Only. This summer's classes will come to about $1400. I'm assuming we should do our best to pay cash for these classes? Ahhh I'm so nervous to try to take that on.

I'm glad I found this thread. I'm nervous, but also excited!

Welcome

My DH will not budge on the retirement. So we still contribute. It is one area he does not agree with DR on. I do not make it an issue, because he feels strongly about it. If your DH's is tripled, that sounds really good.

And yes, try to pay cash for the classes, try to budget it in now so when summer gets here you have the money.

[crazyeight]

i think it certainly depends on your situation for retirement. many people are not saving at all so it can create problems but just KNOWING and WORKING on having no debt is going to give us a leg up in the first place. I really really really want to start retirment asap since we are so young we won't need to contribute as much and be able to stop sooner than if we wait. i am very happy that we (I!!!) have such a good head and was taught about debt. for being under 24 for both of us and really only haveing good debt is amazing.

I really hope that dh understands he is not going to be able to get another car payment after his is paid off since we desperatly need to put that $260 towards a retirment account.

[RoadWorkAhead]

I think were we any older, or in a different situation, I might continue funding retirement. As it stands, DH is in school fulltime and it is isn't in the budget either way so its not being funded this year, but next summer when DH starts working FT, we'll have a leg up in that he is union and so gets 2 funded pensions that are funded above and beyond his pay (Example...He makes 25$/hr. and then 2/hr goes to fed pension and 1.80 goes to local pension, amounts vary so his total pay is over 25$, but not something he sees in his check) and then we'll start funding a Roth IRA and a 401k while saving for our big EF and paying off mortgage.

On another note: We have decided to fund our BEF and not go out of order. Sadly this means that we're going to have to leave some debt there to smolder, but hopefully it'll be gone quickly. I've called my dad's ex wife whom I do legal work for on the side (but haven't in months due to DD's g-tube) to see if I can get work now since my sis will be leaving for college in the fall (Princeton probably) and she'll want to spend time with her. Last brief I wrote for her earned me 1500$ for about 50 hours of work, mainly at home. If only we'd been good about not living quite so high on the hog back then...Oh well. WE're getting better now!

[llamalluv]

Originally Posted by lizziebits

We plan on working first on our 2nd mortgage, as it is only $6000 more than the student loans and the interest rate is twice as high. Do you guys think this is a good idea?

I know in the book Dave Ramsey says to not worry about funding retirement until step 4. But, my husband thinks that because our contributions are essentially tripled, it would make sense to just keep contributing. Also, they retirement fund is pre-tax dollars. It would give us about $300 (before taxes) extra a month. Should we contribute or not?

Finally, I am starting nursing school in the fall. I will be taking some prerequisites this summer. It's a local community college, so its only $174/credit. Only. This summer's classes will come to about $1400. I'm assuming we should do our best to pay cash for these classes? Ahhh I'm so nervous to try to take that on.

I'm glad I found this thread. I'm nervous, but also excited!

You are actually in pretty good shape for someone coming into the FPU program! No credit card debt at all?! Good for you!

1. My husband HAS to contribute to his retirement (it is NOT an option, so we don't follow DR on that 100%). I think that I agree with you, that it is only 7.5% and you are tripling your money doing nothing else.

2. Yes, I would do the same thing (and I am). DH and I are paying down my credit card balance (which was originally $11,000 @ 11%) instead of my two student loans ($3500 @ 6.5% and $7000 @ 4.25%) because of the massive difference in interest rate and also monthly payment. The payment on my CC was $250/month and the payment on BOTH SL's combined was only $100.

3. Yes, save up and pay cash for your classes and books.

[Purple*Lotus]

This has been really bothering me lately. Am I the only one who gets creeped out when people refer to us as "followers" on other threads?

It bothers me for several reasons. DR is a man, not God, and in the Bible it specifically states that we are to not follow the world. Although DR's advice is fairly sound from a Bibilcal perspective- even though is off on his 15 year motgage idea, God warns against anything over 7, I still don't consider myself to be "following" DR. I just agree with his advice, and implement it. I don't think he is a replacement for God in my life.

So I get irked. I was just wondering if I was the only one who gets offended by it.

[Mama Rana]

Originally Posted by jeca

It's a card made just for purchases at the base Px so if I cut it up all he has to do is go to customer service and request a temp card they issue one right there on the spot. I will just be focusing on mine though and our car payment instead.

Originally Posted by ~*Jaime

This has been really bothering me lately. Am I the only one who gets creeped out when people refer to us as "followers" on other threads?

It bothers me for several reasons. DR is a man, not God, and in the Bible it specifically states that we are to not follow the world. Although DR's advice is fairly sound from a Bibilcal perspective- even though is off on his 15 year motgage idea, God warns against anything over 7, I still don't consider myself to be "following" DR. I just agree with his advice, and implement it. I don't think he is a replacement for God in my life.

So I get irked. I was just wondering if I was the only one who gets offended by it.

I don't, but I'm not a Christian, so maybe that makes a difference. We are "followers" in that we are trying to 'follow' his advice, or at least the parts that make sense to our specific situations. I don't think [most] people mean it in a cultish way, so I would try to assume the best of intentions.

[lalaland42]

Originally Posted by Mama Rana

I don't, but I'm not a Christian, so maybe that makes a difference. We are "followers" in that we are trying to 'follow' his advice, or at least the parts that make sense to our specific situations. I don't think [most] people mean it in a cultish way, so I would try to assume the best of intentions.

: It doesn't bother me at all but I am not Christian either. As I see it, people aren't following DR but they are following a financial plan outlined by DR. It is just faster to say someone is following DR than the whole phrase listed above.

[RoadWorkAhead]

Ditto this.

[TattooedMama]

Erm... sometimes in other threads we have been accused of being "cultish" so I get where you are coming from Jaime. It bugs me too sometimes.
I just know I am using resources available to me whether they be Suze Orman, Dave Ramsey, the radio, library books, this thread, etc....
all to do the best I can for my family.
That's all that matters to me at the end of the day.
I don't owe an explanation to anyone.

[Shelsi]

I was just lurking, reading the past few pages, trying to get a feel for what this is all about.

Danielle, you DO have life insurance unless your dh had them take it off. It's listed on his LES as family SGLI and it's not very much every month, just a few bucks I think and I believe it's worth $50,000 but I could be wrong on the amount. I'm sure you could easily google it.

As for us I'm not sure this is the right money saving thing. I'll keep lurking and learning We don't really have much debt though. Just a car payment and a student loan, that's it. And we've got about 12K in savings at the moment. Dh is getting out of the military in May and hopefully getting a job right away and we'll be buying a house so I'm sure that savings will get depleted pretty quickly. On the upside though he just applied for an FBI job in Indianapolis that would be awesome because my best friend lives there, my parents are only 2 hours away, and best of all you can get a nice 4 bedroom house with lots of square footage in a nice neighborhood for under 100K.

I guess at the moment I can't start much of a program because we're not sure where we are moving or if he'll even have a job right away. $70K a year in Indianapolis is waaaay different than 70K a year in Washington D.C.

Ok going back into lurk mode

[JackieR]

My thoughts:

VERY good idea to pay off the 2nd mortgage first. Some of the reason behind the snowball, I think, is that if you start with your smaller debts you'll pay them off more quickly and will feel motivated to continue. But since the debts are similar in size but the interest rates vary greatly, I'd suggest eliminating the 2nd mortgage first.

Your husband is right about continuing to contribute to the retirement...regardless of what DR would say. I completely disagree with DR on the retirement front in most cases.

Yes, pay cash for the classes. Even if it means slowing your snowball a bit.

Best of luck! This is the best thread I've found on MDC! I love it!

Jackie

PS - Our EF is now $2000. Oh yay. I am so excited!!!!!!!!!!!

[mia_jean]

Originally Posted by TattooedMama

Hey Mia_Jean!!!

Thanks TattooedMama!

[lizziebits]

Originally Posted by JackieR

Best of luck! This is the best thread I've found on MDC! I love it!

Thanks for the advice! I am loving this thread too. I've been so busy these past few days I haven't had much time to be on, but I keep thinking how nice it will be to have other people to do this with!

[Guinevere]

Hi there, checking back in as we're getting towards the end of the month...

We're working our steps, but a few things this month have been frustrating:

1. In switching over most of our bills to automatic withdrawal from our bank account (so no more late checks ), our billing dates have changed and now ALL of our bills are coming due in the first half of the month, which is a problem, since DH pays us 2x/month. I need to call some of our creditors and find out if I can balance out our bills between the first and second halves of the month. Hopefully, they will be helpful.

2. Gas and grocery prices seem to have skyrocketed this month! We're over budget in both, and I'm scrambling a bit, b/c we don't have much, if any, wiggle room to accomodate the higher prices. Last month, I was so excited b/c we came in UNDER budget in both categories and put that surplus towards our cc debt. This month we'll be lucky to pay the minimums. Anyway, it has me bummed out, b/c the only things left to cut in our budget (help with cleaning 2x/month, date night w/DH) are also the two things that most preserve my sanity, my quality of life, and my marriage. Double bummer!

3. In keeping w/DR's advice, we have called TWICE now to close two unused cc accounts, yet they STILL both show up online. Initially, they told us that to wait one billing cycle to see them gone, but it's been two full billing cycles and there they still are! Grrr! What does a person have to do to get rid of unused credit? Most annoying!

Hmmm...okay, enough negativity. Let me refocus for a moment on the positive:

1. We used some savings to plant a square-foot vegetable garden for the spring/summer which should help reduce our grocery costs somewhat.

2. Both of my SILs are currently pg and having baby showers in April. Using materials I already had around the house, I sewed both of them gorgeous wrap-style slings with zippered pockets and so have 2 "free" and lovely gifts to give them.

3. B/c we are so far over budget this month, we cancelled a planned family trip this coming weekend (it's our Spring Break right now), so as to not spend more $ we don't have. While it's disappointing, I'm actually much less stressed out and happy we're not going, b/c I would have spent the whole time worrying about $ and not enjoying myself, anyway.

Guin

[mumkenna&lucas]

Just popping in for a sec. I am having a really hard time this month, I have had a really hard time this month keeping the $$ in my pocketbook! I think I will begin re-reading TMM! I need to get re-inspired! Dh's payroll "goofed" and he didn't get paid on time,so we had a huge setback there..Now it looks like it may happen again tommorrow So we will see..

[Purple*Lotus]

Hey girls

I am working on my April budget tonight so I can post it on the new thread. I was not a good steward of the money this month by not budgeting for the following items: the rise in groceries, the rise in gas and the cat's vet bills. So I have some EF money to replace and I want to pay pay pay on the CC#1. I hope our refund gets here soon. I feel like I have been waiting on it forever. It is all going to the credit card.

[bc1995]

This was not a great month for us either. We had tons of extra money coming in this month, and as a result I felt like we were bleeding money. It is all gone (most of it to where it was intended to go, but still!). We have not added to our cc debt, and that is a huge deal for us. We had an unexpected expense for the plumber at $239 that wasn't in the budget, but I was able to pay it without dipping into the EF. I feel like we really are on the right track. I just wish this train could go faster! I am looking foward to Monday being the 1st and the start of a new month. I am hoping we can do a better job of staying on budget in April.