How Dave Ramsey Is Changing Our Lives

Dave Ramsey....ever heard of him? Struggling financially? Then you might want to "meet" Dave :-)

First, I wanted to start this post off by saying that this is OUR journey with money. It is a very personal issue for me to talk about but I wanted to share our story because it is a FACT that there are so many other people out there that went/are going through the same struggles we are and I want to give hope to those people looking for a way to change what they're doing but don't know where to start. I have this strong urge to share my story, because it was someone else's story and journey with Dave Ramsey's program, that changed our lives. I am forever grateful to that person and she knows who she is ;-) Well, it won't be a secret who that person is as you read this post hahaha! ;-)

Before you begin to read my post, I want you all to understand something...money problems canNOT disapear overnight (when handled legally...hahahahaha!!). They took a while to become problems, they're going to take a while to be fixed! Period.

Our money problems started when I was 18 and applied for my first credit card. I was a jobless Freshman in college, with Christmas quickly approaching. I really hate the idea of not being able to send people gifts, which was the reason I even applied for this credit card. I was approved for that credit card and received it in the mail shortly after. At the time, the credit limit was only $600. That's not too bad, right!? In our society, getting a credit card is like a "right of passage" into the adult world. It's like a status that "has" to be obtained! Well, one credit card led to Derek getting one, with a pretty huge limit for 19 year old. Then we got another together, then I got a few more. By the time we got married, we had 7 credit cards between the two of us. We felt that we were managing them very well. Most months we made over the minimum payment, other days we would immediately pay off what we charged because we wanted to "build our credit". The banks and companies felt we were doing so well with our cards, that at least two of them had the limit increased. So, my "tiny" little credit limit of $600, jumped to an $1,100 limit in just a very short year.

Over the course of a few years, we had ups and downs where we would do really well with paying debt off, then other times where we were trying to figure out how almost all of our cards were maxed out and our only saving grace would be our tax returns each year so we could pay them off. However, once we paid them off, it was like, oh my gosh, we have all this money on our credit cards that we can use and you get the idea....back and forth with maxing out and paying off. Using all those credit cards started to become a small addiction. I was finding ways to justify purchases that I made because I "needed" those items but didn't have the money, so using the credit card was "okay".

When we got married and 9 short months later, had our first child, we couldn't afford daycare on our incomes. We made the very hard choice (and not so hard at the same time lol) to have me quit my job so I could be a stay at home Mom. It was so great in the beginning, but we quickly realized that the credit card payments each month were getting harder and harder to make. We made so many sacrifices by getting rid of frivolous things like cable and Derek had to get a second job to keep up. We started to feel like we were gaining control again, only to find out that we'd continue to max out credit cards because we weren't handling having a single income very well. It was a huge adjustment that definitely took months/years to get figured out.

We made another drastic change, we moved to a nearby town to become apartment managers to save money so Derek could go back to school and finish his degree. At the time, we thought we were freakin NUTS to add all that student loan debt on top of our already crazy credit card debt but in the long run, we felt it was a good choice since it had to do with helping our future. I won't lie, we struggled A LOT. There were days where Derek and I ate Top Ramen for meals in the final week before receiving a paycheck or before we received his financial aid. Let me just mention that even though Derek and I were living off of Top Ramen, Miss K had absolutely everything she needed to be happy and healthy so we made the sacrifices to make sure she always did have the best life and the best resources available to her. Living paycheck to paycheck, pinching every penny we could, along with not having a single cent in savings, was one of that hardest things we've ever experienced. Thank goodness Derek and I had such a strong relationship, the hard times we faced never once influenced our relationship in a negative way. A lot of couples out there have a hard time not fighthing about money. I'm glad we weren't one of them. We always vowed that with just our little family, we could move mountains!

There was one day that I was feeling especially down about our financial situation. I can't entirely remember how the subject came up, but while talking to my dear friend Destiny, she mentioned a program that was created by a gentleman named Dave Ramsey. Some of you may have heard of Dave's program, but if you haven't, look into it! Dave is famous for his Financial Peace University class that you often hear about large church groups putting on because Dave is a pretty religious guy but in a way that doesn't make you feel like you have to have religious beliefs to participate. After some back and forth discussions with Destiny, I found out that she had a closet passion for "financial counseling" and was super eager to help me out (THANK GOODNESS!). Her and her hubby were actually using Dave Ramsey's program but I really still didn't understand what it was at the time she began helping me. It was a huge blessing to get her help because I honestly had NO clue where to even begin with tackling our financial situation. We gave Destiny all of our financial info including what our bills were, how much debt we had (yikes), what our income was, what we needed to live on, etc. Unfortunately, it was hard to come up with a plan that was going to work well for us because we lived off of financial aid and Derek's jobs were not consistent in pay, they always changed because two of the jobs were on-call and his Monday through Friday job was only 3 hours a day. So, for about a year I kept touching base with Destiny as our family went through changes and it was still super frustrating to find that it was still really hard to get on good plan since there were still too many variables going on.

Around April/May 2012 we decided to make another HUGE decision for our family...we wanted to move back by our families. We were just having such a hard time finding a good grove and felt that being near our family members again would help give us the extra support system we needed to get us through our finance troubles. When I say "help us get through" we NEVER planned on moving in with my parents until some time after when we found out the cost of living in our hometown was almost twice what we were used to here but we were already committed to moving and had a date that we needed to move out of our apartment by. The notice was given, there was no turning back. However, even though we didn't plan it, my parents opening up their home to us was one of the HUGEST blessings we were given because that seriously let us start to focus on our financial problems. The main idea of moving back to our hometown after living in Eastern Washington for 8 years, was that we were hoping to have more friends and family to help us out with childcare so I could get a small part time job or do some side jobs to bring a little more income in. Of course, plans changed again because it was a bit of a challenge for Derek to even find employment with a degree in Business Administration so finding a part time job for myself was kind of put on hold.

I'm a firm believer in things happening for a reason. We worked so hard to get to where we were, struggled BIG TIME throughout our lives together trying to make our bill deadlines, provide a great life for our child and to top it all off, we took a HUGE risk to move across Washington state, with no jobs, to be with family. All of that sacrifice and risk IMMEDIATELY started to pay off once we arrived back to our hometown. Not even a week and a half after we moved here, Derek was offered a job as a teller at a local bank. HALLELUJAH! Now that we had a steady income, I very quickly got in touch with Destiny again to go over our finances to see if we could do absolutely anything to start changing our situation.

Destiny helped me hash out what things we needed to cut out of our lives, what budgets we needed to look at implementing, and once I got the hang of what she was trying to accomplish with me and our family, she introduced me to Dave Ramsey's program. With most great programs, you usually need to invest some money into them to get ahold of their resources revolving around the program. Unfortunately, Derek and I could not afford the books and supplies we needed to get going with DR's program, but Destiny did help us find his "7 Baby Steps" online that were FREE to get us started. It was a GREAT starting point!

Baby Step 1 - We got our emergency fund started. It didn't take us very long to get it done, because what we did was Dave said by doing whatever it took to get it started up fast! Sell stuff you don't need! LOL! And that's exactly what we did! I can't even begin to tell all of you what we felt when we finished Baby Step 1. We could NEVER keep anything in our savings for more than a month before it was spent. It was an awful feeling having to turn to family and ask for help when we hit unexpected expenses in our lives. Thankfully everyone in our family is so wonderful, they never hesitated because they all knew we would do everything in our power to pay them back...and we did, but it just took a little longer than normal. Anyways, the peace that was brought to us just by having that savings, was INCREDIBLE. That's all I can do to explain it.

The universe, Dave Ramsey Gods or whoever must have noticed how hard we worked and how dedicated we were to make this happen, because shortly after we completed the first step, we were given Dave's entire book and audio collection from some super close friends of ours that weren't using it at the time. That collection is worth around $250 and it was just given to us to use. We felt so blessed and it was just the kick in the butt we needed to really start changing our financial situation. Derek and I could NOT put any of the books down until we were done reading them. I think I read Dave's book Complete Guide to Money in just about two nights.

Now, I have to tell you, we're still only on Step 2 of the 7 Baby Steps and we've been KILLING the 2nd step! :-) It's a process. It's not some "overnight miracle cure" to getting out of financial stress. It takes time, but I will be the one to tell you that it's SO worth it! The Debt Snowball is an addiction, a great addiction, I might add! ;-) Once you get going on your Debt Snowball, you seriously get the biggest rush seeing your debt just disappear! Don't just take my word for it, try it out for yourself! HAHA! Make it fun, do stuff to personalize, set goals, make it a fun competition with your spouse or partner. GET EXCITED because it's changing your lives forever in one of the best ways possible! The key to getting through this baby step is to stay committed and motivated. There were a few times where we were feeling pretty defeated because it's summer and there are so many fun things that we wanted to save for and do, so we didn't get to attack our debt like we were in the beginning. I hate how I just made that sound like a bad thing, because we were still able to do fun stuff and pay CASH for it. We never had to worry about a monthly reminder in the form of a bill to come back and bite us in the butt like we did in the past because the only way we could do fun stuff was charge it! BOO! We had to remember to look at the BIGGER picture every time we got discouraged. Just 9 short months after we moved here, we paid off $8,000 in debt, which included paying off our truck, paying off all our credit cards and all the while cash flowing major purchases such as new sets of wheels/tires, trips, etc. It is the most THRILLING thing ever, to say, WE PAID CASH for everything we do or everything we purchase! There are no linger bills or billing statements in the mail, nothing. SO COOL!

As of right now, all we have left is our student loans, which we have set up on an Income Based Repayment plan. I don't suggest doing this unless you are REALLY struggling with making the minimum payments, but Derek and I applied to do this with our loans when he was working two jobs and going to school since our income was very inconsistent. We have to continue to check in with our loan companies each year so they make adjustments based off our income. You CAN stop being on IBR at any time, but for now, while we still live with my parents and try to save up our fully funded emergency fund (which is actually Baby Step 3 - I'll explain more later in this post), we are sticking to the IBR plan.

Another thing that helped us stay extra motivated was getting people involved that were curious about what we were doing. My inlaws were so stunned by how we were doing on this program, they had to know what it was about, so having someone do it with us was so much fun. It was great checking in with one another and having that accountability is always nice. Shortly after that, I had another close friend named Zoe, who started picking my brain about Dave's program and before she knew it, she was WELL on her way to having a better financial lifestyle. To read about the beginning of Zoe's financial journey, you can go HERE ;-) You'll be able to find more of her journey by searching around her blog.

We also quickly discovered that there were more people in our lives already following DR's program than we realized. It kind of makes me sad that people on this program don't talk about it more, but on the flip side of that I can see why most don't, finances are a very personal topic to discuss at all, not everyone is comfortable with doing that.

As mentioned earlier, we are kind of doing Baby Steps 2 and 3 side by side, or more like, now that we only have student loan debt left, we've put Baby Step 2 "on hold" (but still making minimum payments on the loans) while we tackle Baby Step 3. We decided that even though it is deviating away from Dave's original plan, we wanted to have a fully funded emergency fund so that we could start looking for a house to buy. We have went back and forth on this SO much. We struggled with straying from the program because it is proven to work but with our situation, living with my parents and not being able to rent a place cheap enough and safe enough to continue with paying off debt, getting a home with a mortgage payment that was cheaper than monthly rent in this area, is just the better choice for us. However, we agreed that if we were going to stray from the original plan, we needed to have another STRICT plan in place, it was a must. We have been confiding in Destiny again for help and sort of a way to keep us in "check". Once we did that, we've been doing amazing ever since. Having a strict plan within the plan made a huge difference. Once we buy a home, we are right back to tackling student loan debt until it's GONE! I cannot freakin wait! :-)

We have been doing this all on ONE income that is under $30,000. We always get "that look" when we share that information with others and the first thing that people say to us is "that's because you're living with your parents and not paying rent." WRONG. We ARE paying my parents rent, not that it should matter. What made this all happen for us, was finding our "rude awakening" - our spending. We were TERRIBLE spenders and you will find a lot of people that will tell you that simply setting up a budget was what made the biggest difference. Us creating our budget was our big change that made this all possible. We don't overspend, we don't live beyond our means, we don't buy everything we thing we need, we are always doing the "need or want" game when it comes to purchases. We started telling our money what to do and where to go, and that freed up SO much "extra" money for us.

I'm willing to bet that almost EVERYONE will go through some kind of financial struggle at some point in their lives. It's what we choose to do about it when that times comes, that will shape us and our financial futures. My husband and I chose to "change our family tree" so that our children will learn to never struggle with money like we did, or at least we will do everything we can to give them the tools to be successful with money and whether they choose to be smart about money or not. Having debt is NOT a good thing. No matter what people tell you, don't live beyond your means, it's NOT worth it.

**Disclaimer - to make Dave's program work for you, you MUST MUST MUST want to change your BEHAVIOR not just little things here and there. If you can't change your behavior, this will not work for you. Dave preaches about changing your behavior in the very beginning of his book Complete Guide to Money. I was in no way asked or paid to write this blog post. I'm sharing it because it's hard not to talk about something that we are extremely grateful for that has transformed out lives FOREVER.**

I was in NO way paid or compensated for writing this post. I'm just THAT passionate about this and I'm a living breathing advocate for Dave's Program because my family is proof that it IS successful! You just have to make it successful and CHOOSE to be successful at it :-)

I LOVE talking about Dave's program and my husband and I love being some what of financial "counselors" so if you all have ANY questions, or want to know MORE, PLEASE PLEASE ask! It took one person telling me their story and their success to get us well on our way, so I hope we can do the same for you!!