Day 151: TMMO

The past few weeks, I've been casually reading Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover. At least the first half of the book was pretty much not news for me. But my mom loaned it to me about a year or so ago so I decided to finally make a point to read it.

The first, pre-first really, step is to get current on all payments. We are already current. Luckily we haven't had anything major come up and are able to be current on our debts. Baby Step 1 is to save up a $1000 emergency fund so we never have to borrow money ever again. We already had a $1000 in an emergency fund. The checking account we started when we got married required a minimum balance of $1000 for some promotion they were doing and I just have always pretended it wasn't there.

Baby Step 2 is to payoff all current debts by starting with the smallest debt first and gradually adding the payments you used to make on the smaller debts to the larger debts. We've pretty much been doing that for months and I made the final move and pulled money out of our savings account to finish paying off all of our accounts. It wasn't an easy decision to make, but Ramsey makes a lot of sense when he says that paying interest on a debt costs more than you make on the money in the bank.

So, today I set things into motion. Checks will be cut/sent on Monday. By the end of next week, we should be debt free!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No car payments, no credit card and we can start saving up for our Security Emergency Fund. For this Baby Step, you have to save up 3-6 months worth of expenses. Figure out what it costs for your family to live for 3-6 months and save up that amount.

This sounds like magic to most people. Follow his steps and retire as a millionaire or near it. If you start at 25, you could retire a multi-millionaire. I just don't wanna eat cat food. I gave up my guaranteed job for life and my retirement in Illinois to follow a soldier. We will most likely move one or two more times before he retires and I will have a few pesos in teacher's retirements all over the country. I really can't count on his military retirement because if he dies, I get half of his half of his base pay. That might be enough to cover health insurance, MAYBE.

But just being able to talk about finances, decisions together has made our marriage stronger. I don't know that what Ramsey says is earth shattering. My parents were fantastic stewards of their money and taught us all pretty well, but maybe you didn't have that growing up or have made some poor choices or just don't know what to do.

I am really interested in the next section, learning how to invest in our future. We need some sort of financial plan. The sooner we get started the less painful it will be. I do know that it feels good to have a plan and be doing something more specific than just thinking about it.

Day 156: Good advice

Today we decided to run some errands. We ran to mail some books back to the boys. We ran to Kohl's so I could pick up some spring things. We ran to Wal-mart for pool chemicals and a new Hoover Floormate because I have wanted one to help with the housework. Then we went to lunch which was nice. Since today was a school day, it kind of felt like playing hooky. Heck, it was playing hooky.

We've been talking about getting a new bed for awhile. I bought the one we have with mattress, box spring and dresser for $900 in 2003. It has held up pretty well, but the mattress is starting to sag and was not a high quality mattress in the beginning, so we decided it was time for an upgrade.

We started looking and found a great salesperson that showed us how to find a mattress that wouldn't just feel good in the store, but would be good for our bodies and sleeping styles. The mattress felt great, but we have been thinking that we might want to move up to a king. While we love each other and want to snuggle sometimes, we also want to be able to roll over and move around without irritating each other.

Problem is, we should have started this process weeks ago. Now we've got two days before he leaves and we spent hours looking at furniture, trying to convince ourselves we really like something they have in stock so we can get new furniture in 48 hours.

After two stores and significant shopping, I finally ended our waffling. I don't want to spend any more of our precious few hours looking for ways to scramble and get a new mattress and bed and dresser and I don't want to have to move in new furniture by myself and decide what to do with the old stuff.

Also, the army warns the soldiers not to make any major purchases over R&R because it is very tempting. We both felt free today, playing hooky from real life, beautiful spring day and the promise of summer imminent. But as I am reading Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover I am realizing that many of the principles I have been living under for years are really the best ways to live. Don't buy new because you can, buy because you have to. Don't spend money you don't have - pay in cash. When I thought about paying for our new bedroom set and mattress from our savings instead of starting a new store credit line, I realized this would take almost half our savings to do right now. I can sleep on the old mattress for another five months and we can revisit this issue when he gets back. Maybe we decide to see how life plays out once he gets home and we wait to purchase the furniture once we move to a new duty station. Maybe we wait to see how a lot of financial cards play out before spending so much on a new bed.

My back hurts a lot, my neck hurts, I could use a better night's sleep, especially with a baby and allergies, but it is good advice to use our money and not let our money use us. So we waited, we came home and watched the baby waddle up and down the sidewalk with her new walker. We organized the garage and crashed on the sofa. Sometimes good advice is just good advice and being smart is knowing when to take it, especially when its your own.