Dumping Debt and Building Wealth with Dave Ramsey*~ September

[Purple*Lotus]

Welcome to September's thread, ladies :

This thread is for anyone who is following the Baby Steps outlined in the book The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. New people are welcomed to join us on our journey to financial peace.

These are the Baby Steps:

BS1 $1,000 to start an Emergency Fund
BS2 Pay off all debt using the Debt Snowball
BS3 Three to six months of expenses in savings
BS4 Invest 15 percent of household income into Roth IRAs and pre-tax retirement
BS5 College funding for children
BS6 Pay off home early
BS7 Build wealth and give! Invest in mutual funds and real estate

Here's the link to Dave Ramsey's website:

www.daveramsey.com

You can do a lot of things on the site, including listening to his radio show.

Everyone post your intro and if you want, your baby steps and I will add it to this first link.

I basically copied and pasted last months intro

Let's have a great month!

[Purple*Lotus]

Hi everyone I used to be *~Jaime, but I changed my name.

My steps so far:
BS1 $1,000 to start an Emergency Fund- Done :
BS2 Pay off all debt using the Debt Snowball Working on now!
BS3 Three to six months of expenses in savings
BS4 Invest 15 percent of household income into Roth IRAs and pre-tax retirement
BS5 College funding for children
BS6 Pay off home early
BS7 Build wealth and give! Invest in mutual funds and real estate

[pranamama]

Oh, I guess I'm not missing you then

I have some big goals I need to save for quickly!
I am trying to scale back on everything and it is causing me anxiety....
Happy September everyone

[Surfacing]

Subbing with stalled progress. We have the Emergency Fund and I'm *trying* to get the Debt Snowball rolling but it's not happening. Since I'm on maternity leave until Jan 2009 and my top-up expires we'll be living on 55% of my income until I go back to work. Dh has gone back to work but now his union is talking a possible strike. Gulp. I love the man but I'm not sure he's going to get his act together to get some PT work during the strike. As it stands right now, at least I'm insisting on living within budget and not adding to our debt. That is a positive step.

Sending vibes to all to help meet your goals

[erikaa]

Hi! my name is erika and my DH and I have just started working on BS1 !
we spilled out his pretzel barrel of change and found out we had $868 sitting there!!!
so hopefully it won't be long before we have that covered.
i was very excited to find this thread. what a gift to find support for this!

BS 1 - $868 in emergency fund.....

[shanetedissac]

Good Morning:

Subbing again I've been on this thread I this for over a year now. I will post my baby step specifics when I get the figures added up. We are currently on baby step 4b. For us that is saving for our three boys Bar Mitzvah's.

Enjoy!

[Jilian]

Subbing again, thanks for starting this thread BunnyFlakes!

We really got our snowball rolling last month and hope to continue the progress this month. I've been busy selling everything we can do without. Our goal for this month is to save up at least $1,000 to add on to our snowball. We've started recording the Dave Ramsey TV show and watcing it at night for inspiration.

BS1: Done!
BS2: $3,200 down and $55,000 to go (DH's student loans are a killer!)
BS3: Not yet
BS4: we're currently doing 6% just to get the company match, will increase to 15% once we get to this step
BS5: we have small savings accounts for the children for now
BS6:we had to get rid of our home but hope to own again in about 5 yrs
BS7: Can't wait to reach this one!

Happy debt dumping everyone!

[JackieR]

subbing...

I have been lurking the last couple of months but am still interested in subbing.

[Purple*Lotus]

Originally Posted by pranamama

Oh, I guess I'm not missing you then

I have some big goals I need to save for quickly!
I am trying to scale back on everything and it is causing me anxiety....
Happy September everyone

How can we help encourage you with your goals?

Originally Posted by Emese'sMom

Subbing with stalled progress. We have the Emergency Fund and I'm *trying* to get the Debt Snowball rolling but it's not happening. Since I'm on maternity leave until Jan 2009 and my top-up expires we'll be living on 55% of my income until I go back to work. Dh has gone back to work but now his union is talking a possible strike. Gulp. I love the man but I'm not sure he's going to get his act together to get some PT work during the strike. As it stands right now, at least I'm insisting on living within budget and not adding to our debt. That is a positive step.

Sending vibes to all to help meet your goals

Hopefully your DH will get some work if they do strike. And not adding to debt is a GREAT thing!

Originally Posted by erikaa

Hi! my name is erika and my DH and I have just started working on BS1 !
we spilled out his pretzel barrel of change and found out we had $868 sitting there!!!
so hopefully it won't be long before we have that covered.
i was very excited to find this thread. what a gift to find support for this!

BS 1 - $868 in emergency fund.....

Wow that is impressive! I thought I did well when I had a jar of coins that ended up being $52

You are almost done with the EF Keep it up!

Originally Posted by shanetedissac

Good Morning:

Subbing again I've been on this thread I this for over a year now. I will post my baby step specifics when I get the figures added up. We are currently on baby step 4b. For us that is saving for our three boys Bar Mitzvah's.

Enjoy!

Welcome again!

Originally Posted by Jilian

Subbing again, thanks for starting this thread BunnyFlakes!

We really got our snowball rolling last month and hope to continue the progress this month. I've been busy selling everything we can do without. Our goal for this month is to save up at least $1,000 to add on to our snowball. We've started recording the Dave Ramsey TV show and watcing it at night for inspiration.

BS1: Done!
BS2: $3,200 down and $55,000 to go (DH's student loans are a killer!)
BS3: Not yet
BS4: we're currently doing 6% just to get the company match, will increase to 15% once we get to this step
BS5: we have small savings accounts for the children for now
BS6:we had to get rid of our home but hope to own again in about 5 yrs
BS7: Can't wait to reach this one!

Happy debt dumping everyone!

Student loans are a killer! I have $19,000 more on mine : Welcome

Originally Posted by JackieR

I have been lurking the last couple of months but am still interested in subbing.

There you are! We have missed you

[Nora_SEA]

We started the DR MTMM plan late July and started on BS2 beginning of August ...we started with 63,342.41 owing (not including mortgage - only including CC and student loans.) We are doing the snowball and then paying an extra 1000.00 per month toward our debt and we have made HUGE changes in other areas. We are on course to be debt free by June 2011.

BS1: Done 8.7.08
BS2: Work in progress:
#1=80.57/done!! 8.08
#2=380.75/done!! 8.08
#3=424.09/done!! 9.08
#4=487.06/done!! 9.08
#5=527.70/done!! 9.08
#6=542.63/goal 10.08 (will be doing snowball a little slower over holiday season)
#7=572.88/goal 11.08
#8=772.33/goal 12.08
#9=4311.26/goal 4.09
#10=8529.06/goal 11.09
#11=12291.94/goal 7.10
#12=12976.12/goal 2.11
#13=20114.52/goal 6.11
Grand Total:
Start Date 8/08: $63072.19
Pd $3613.14 through 9.08
BALANCE: $59729.27 ... payoff date:6-8.2011 Over the past 6 weeks we've paid down 3613.14. Cannot wait to get into more paydays this month so more pmts can go out!!! Why did I not start this sooner...

[Jilian]

Originally Posted by Nora_SEA

We are on course to be debt free by June 2011.

I'm curious to hear how you calculate your "debt free" date. I'd love to figure ours out! Interest screws me up, I'm not sure how much to add for it.

[mtm]

Hey everyone! Welcome and welcome back. We're still on babystep 2. We have $4517 left til bs3. I'm throwing 679 at it tomorrow and it will be so nice to be under $4000. I'm hoping to scrape together more for later in the month too but its signup time for kids activities so may not have any extra this month. Still on track for hitting bs in the spring. I've been reading on livinglikenooneelse recently and its great for staying on track, many thanks to whoever posted the link, phatui maybe?

[mamimapster]

Start of September
Arugh. Dp's job listed all of her baby time off as unpaid. They are fixing it, but it might take a week.
BS 0-done
BS1 1,000 to start an Emergency Fund --DONE!!
BS 1.1- Adoption 500/2200-sent 1st pmt, in court 8/8-600/2200 as of 8/12
BS2 Pay off all debt using the Debt Snowball

HBSC Cc-121.00
Elan Cc-2289.92
Working Assets Cc-3700/3650
Citi-7720/7620
Student Loans 39,000( Pie in the Sky!!)

BS3- (3-6 mos)looking forward to working on this.
BS4-15 percent of household income to retirement-not yet.
BS5 College funding for children-not there yet.
BS6 Pay off home early-Ditto
BS7 Build wealth and give! Invest in mutual funds and real estate-ditto

[Purple*Lotus]

Okay so pretty much the entire MDC board knows that my DH got a speeding ticket today :

I am like, so, well, I am :

Why not just flush money down the toilet?

I don't even know how much it is yet, but rest assured, I am ticked

[Nora_SEA]

Originally Posted by Jilian

I'm curious to hear how you calculate your "debt free" date. I'd love to figure ours out! Interest screws me up, I'm not sure how much to add for it.

I am using the software on Dave Ramsey's site - www.mytotalmoneymakeover.com and as part of the budget there is a snowball program that you plug your numbers into and then it gives you the forcasted freedom date. I'm sure if you google "snowball spreadsheet/worksheet" you'll find something similar though. ETA** I just saw that you can buy DR's software for $10.00. I should have done that instead of the $89 for use of software online, community, the book and wallet... Didn't know that then... http://www.daveramsey.com/shop/Dave_...e_P489C119.cfm

Although once we get down to 2 debts which are our highest - a line of credit from Bank of America and a student loan we will flip which one we snowball on. His site has you do it strictly by amt owed and doesn't factor in interest rates. The student loans are at 3% and the BOA loc is at 13%. So we will focus on loc instead.

Has anyone else done this? For most of the credit cards we are doing it as he suggests. Paying off the smallest amts first. Student loans are just so "different" in how they affect your credit worthiness...I think.

[Nora_SEA]

Originally Posted by Bunnyflakes

Why not just flush money down the toilet?

I don't even know how much it is yet, but rest assured, I am ticked

Oh yeah, tickets suck. Sorry.

[Denvergirlie]

This is the first month that I get to say that I've moved onto the next step in quite some time.

Step 3 for me, paid off all my debts last month, so am changing my focus to that 6 month EF. I should have that saved by December and then will focus on a large house/ land downpayment.

[Nora_SEA]

Originally Posted by Denvergirlie

This is the first month that I get to say that I've moved onto the next step in quite some time.

Step 3 for me, paid off all my debts last month, so am changing my focus to that 6 month EF. I should have that saved by December and then will focus on a large house/ land downpayment.

: CONGRATS!!!!

So, I just got to playing around with snowball calculator and notice that if I snowball on higher interest debts first (which incidentally include all my smaller balances because they are department store cards...) saving the student loans until the end I can save $1506.74 over the next 31 months and move our freedom date up to March 2011. (With last cc being paid off in November 2010, leaving only stident loans.) I know the DR advises to just start the snowball paying off the smallest amts first, but I'm definitely going to do it this way. Cannot see why not!

[Purple*Lotus]

Originally Posted by Nora_SEA

We started the DR MTMM plan late July and started on BS2 beginning of August ...we started with 63,342.41 owing (not including mortgage - only including CC and student loans.) We are doing the snowball and then paying an extra 1000.00 per month toward our debt and we have made HUGE changes in other areas. We are on course to be debt free by June 2011.

You are doing great so far!

Originally Posted by mtm

Hey everyone! Welcome and welcome back. We're still on babystep 2. We have $4517 left til bs3. I'm throwing 679 at it tomorrow and it will be so nice to be under $4000. I'm hoping to scrape together more for later in the month too but its signup time for kids activities so may not have any extra this month. Still on track for hitting bs in the spring. I've been reading on livinglikenooneelse recently and its great for staying on track, many thanks to whoever posted the link, phatui maybe?

Keep up the great work!

Originally Posted by mamimapster

Start of September
Arugh. Dp's job listed all of her baby time off as unpaid. They are fixing it, but it might take a week.
BS 0-done
BS1 1,000 to start an Emergency Fund --DONE!!
BS 1.1- Adoption 500/2200-sent 1st pmt, in court 8/8-600/2200 as of 8/12
BS2 Pay off all debt using the Debt Snowball

HBSC Cc-121.00
Elan Cc-2289.92
Working Assets Cc-3700/3650
Citi-7720/7620
Student Loans 39,000( Pie in the Sky!!)

BS3- (3-6 mos)looking forward to working on this.
BS4-15 percent of household income to retirement-not yet.
BS5 College funding for children-not there yet.
BS6 Pay off home early-Ditto
BS7 Build wealth and give! Invest in mutual funds and real estate-ditto

Welcome!

Well, DH's speeding ticket is $164!! : : :

Yeah, I am majorally unhappy We don't have to take it from the EF, however, that is $164 less dollars we can throw at the snowball!

Does anyone do the 0 based budget where you tell each dollar where to go? That makes me nervous, for some reason. Can anyone explain it better to me or tell me how they like it? I am always paranoid that we will run out of milk or something. Not that milk isn't something you *can* go without. I don't know, I just worry and think too much. Especially with gas, how do you know how much you will need for gasoline?

[lactivistmama]

I am going to join in too
We are beginning Dave Ramsey! So excited! (except for the fact that we are on the get current step : ) But even at that, we see light at the end of the tunnel eventually (after my gazillion payments are made to my student loan I stayed home with my children for 4 years, and just went back to work last month. It was really hard, but we were digging ourselves into a hole financially with me not working, so it had to be done