It is a year and 2 months later and my husband and I have now went from hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to now being left with only a couple of loans! We never thought that at 30 years old we would be living out the rest of our lives free from debt. We would be able to pay for trips in cash, vehicles in cash, and not let debt keep us from doing the things our hearts desire and helping our children live a life where they can go to college without having massive loans left to pay or get them a car where they aren't stuck with a huge loan. I believe in this program so much that I have practically become Daves personal spokesperson without him even knowing it. He should pay ME for giving him so much free advertisement but then again, HE is the one that has helped millions of families get out of debt and their kids will be out of debt, and their KIDS' kids will be out of debt.
I went on a quest to find 2 family's who were willing to open up and journal their process of getting out of debt. They had to be willing to let us see the ups and downs, their loans, why they are currently in the middle of this process, and share their income. Thank you to the two family's whom are allowing us to take a peek into their journey every month and help all the Rodeo Wives, Girlfriends, and Family readers see how terrific they are now that they have learned to know that money doesn't control them and won't ever control them again! It will not be the reason they can't sleep at night or the reason they don't want to answer the phone for fear that it is a bill collector on the other end. Nope, these family's will never have those fears (unless they decide to go A-wall and take out new credit cards or go crazy buying things on loan again after they do all the hard work to getting Debt Free) I picked a family of 4 (husband, wife, and 2 kids) and a couple (man and wife) who have been married for 10+ years to share their stories so each of you will know you can do it no matter what your status!
I hope each of you reading this will choose to start the program to getting OUT OF DEBT. You won't regret it! There may be difficult times and in the beginning. You may struggle to keep your budget, but, you won't ever regret sacrificing a year or two of being strict with your budget to FOREVER being OUT OF DEBT! You will sacrifice not doing things for awhile and you will see your friends go out to eat, take trips, spend money on desires and impulses that they want and you can't and won't be doing that BUT, YOU will be the family who has NO mortgage, NO credit cards, NO loans. YOU will be the family who can take a trip to Africa, Europe, ANYWHERE for that matter without maxing out a credit card and enjoying every cocktail while you're there bc you won't be coming home wondering when that first credit card bill will come with that cocktail price on it. You paid in CASH! Yes ma'am you did! Can I get an Amen?! So sit back and enjoy the journey because it will forever be worth it!
Meet our First family. We will call them the "H Family". This family is the man and wife who decided to share their journey with us. Here is their journey to getting out of debt and the "H" family gives you a breakdown of Dave's steps to getting out of debt. You don't just start paying stuff off. There is a very specific method Dave requires of you and the H family details that below.
Let me introduce ourselves. We are a family of two. I am a teacher and my husband is a technician. We both started out our marriage with me having $20,000 a YEAR private college loans. We ended up buying a new car since my car was quite old, plus we bought a house. We also had to purchase items for our new house and slowly the credit card amounts started accumulating. After a few years of it slowly building up, we read Dave Ramsey's book and decided we needed a change.
We started the program last year. First, we built up $1,000 in emergency savings which is the first step in Dave's process to getting out of debt. (You have to have $1,000.00 in savings before you can start paying off your loans and credit cards. This way, in case of an emergency you aren't taking out another credit card to pay for the emergency. There is a method to this madness so trust Dave and you will be out of debt in no time). Dave then talks about the snowball effect where you will start by paying off your lowest balance credit card. Once it is paid off, you then take the amt. you pd monthly on the old credit card and apply it to the next highest balance credit card. You would continue that process until all of your c.c. are paid off.
Before we started Dave Ramsey, we decided to cut up all but one credit card. We then started paying EVERYTHING in cash. If we didn't have the cash, we didn't buy it. If we had to pay for something online (ex. airline tickets), we made sure it was with our debit card and would not put anything towards credit.
We just updated all of our totals and we have pd off all of our credit cards except for one plus one of my student loans. We have one more student loan, our house, and my car to pay off and we will be debt free! It has not come without sacrifice! We looked at our taxes and found the total that we earned last year and found that we used 1/3 of our income to specifically work on paying down our debt. We have also made sure that we eat at home. When we hear about all of our friends taking vacations and going to Disney or traveling around, we are quite jealous, but we know our staying home right now will be rewarded later on. If I HAVE/NEED to travel, I add on extra jobs/ tasks to earn extra money to be able to pay for the trips. I travel twice a year to see family and I always perform extra jobs so that we have the money to pay for it and we do not have to charge it and pay it off month after month. We put the money in our account, purchase the trip on our debit card and are not burdened by it the next month when we have to find money to pay for it. My income is constant but my hsubands income varies from week to week, so it makes budgeting even that much more important.
We are also very faithful in tithing above and beyond 10%. No matter what is written on our pay checks, we feel it is important to give to the Lord first. Everything we have been given was by God and we feel that we can express our gratitiude and faithfulness by submitting our "First fruits" to the Lord. He says, "Bring me your tithe. Test me in this," says the Lord. "and see if I won't throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it." I am thankful for his faithfulness and provision in our lives.
A family member passed away recently and we were very blessed to be given some money that he had left us. Initially we were talking about all the great things we could use with the money: a trip, redoing our backyard, a couch, redoing the kitchen, and more, but I just kept getting this sickening feeling in my stomach. My flesh wanted to use it for selfish reasons since we had spent so much time sacrificing and depriving ourselves of things for us! However, my brain was telling me that I would regret it afterwards. We decided to use it to pay off some bills and would be rewarded later. We ended up paying off our first vehicle, a school loan, plus a credit card with the money. After we did it, I felt such a sense of satisfaction and know that we are that much closer to being able to afford these kinds of luxuries all on our own! The end results will be so worth it!
Our goal is to have almost everything paid off this year and look forward to sharing our journey with you. I know there will be some ups and downs, but we are very goal-oriented. Thank you for letting us share a little bit of our story.
Coming next from this family, I will have them give somewhat of a breakdown to how they pay their bills so you can get a view of how it works. I asked the family of 4 to give us this breakdown now so you can see how they make it work. Let's call them the "J" family.
We are a rodeo family of four. My husband rodeos and I stay at home with my children, a boy and girl. We have been working for over a year now on the Dave Ramsey program and every month we are getting closer and closer to being debt free. We currently have 3 loans left to payoff. A Student loan for $20,976.60, our vehicle for $23,000.00, and a loan for $28,682.70. We had over $300,000+ worth of debt before we started and now we are left with these 3 loans so you can see our excitement! Every month we make a budget, which is listed in Daves workbook. It resembles something like this: BUDGET
Utilities: AT&T 165.06
XCEL ENERGY: 136.70
BLACKHILLS ENERGY: 266.01
CENTURY LINK: 40.00
Vehicle Loan: 650.00
Business Loan: 400.00
Miscellaneous: 1000.00
Church:10% of what we win and our monthly sponsorship
Doctor: 120.00
Student Loan: any extra goes towards this since it is our lowest loan and is what we are currently working on
Groceries: 800.00
Dave Ramsey asks that you make a rough draft budget of what you think you will spend ranging from groceries to doctor bills, to utilities. You CANNOT go shopping for clothes, take trips, etc.! You save every, single, penny extra and put it towards your loan! This is how you get things paid off so quick. So, Say my husband brings in 5000.00 from his monthly sponsors which is what we use to pay our bills and then on top of it he wins 3000.00 from the rodeo. Because we are a rodeo family and we NEVER know if we will be bringing in 1000.00 or 15,000 we make sure to use what ever he wins and pay his entry fees and any vet bills, blown tires (bc we all know how the many miles on the road do a tire good on your trailer and semi) and then whatever is left over, we do NOT save, we put it towards the loan. Some might think we are crazy that we don't have a security account besides our emergency fund Dave states to have, but God has ALWAYS provided for our needs. If my husband doesn't win, God has ALWAYS given us the money we've needed to pay for our entry fees and expenses. Some months we don't have more than a penny to put towards the loan bc he didn't win any extra and some months we've had 30,000 to put towards it. We all know how unpredictable rodeo is so it's a guess. As a rodeo family, it may take you longer to complete the program BUT as a rodeo family making the national finals, you may have things paid for in one year. Just depends and it's unpredictable but don't give up! Have patience and keep thinking of how great it will be when this is completed. This journey has been well worth it and we're excited to be journaling our experience with you all. Thank you for allowing us to.
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