This morning at church, I noticed an announcement in the bulletin. It was a class that is being offered every Sunday night for 13 weeks (basically until the beginning of December) on Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. The class is offered (I think) through videos and a number of workbooks that will help you eventually become debt free and learn the ways of living with "Financial Peace" (hence the title of his classes). I went home and started to research Dave Ramsey and weather or not this class would benefit Whit and me at this time in our life. Well, I should rephrase that-- I KNOW it would benefit us, but are we going to do it? I have been logging our expenses (mostly bills and debt) in the computer and keeping very good track of it since we moved into the house. I'm paying extra on ALL my credit cards and even Whit's student loans and the mortgage. I mean we are paying an extra $200.00 to the principal every month! That's amazing for as little as we make! :)
Anyways, I was searching online about Dave Ramsey to see if there were books I could purchase and/or borrow from the library, but I'm completely overwhelmed. I don't know what to get! "Baby Steps", "Total Money Makeover", "Financial Peace University," the list goes on and on about the number of books he has written on this subject. I can't wrap my mind around all that! I need a "Idiot's Guide to Getting Debt Free". So, I looked up on google Debt Calculators.
The one I found is the best (so far) is What's the Cost. I was able to register on it and make it "remember" my information (no credit card account numbers or anything like that) just simple numbers. The amount I owe, the interest rate, the minimum amount due and then I push the little calculate button and VIOLA! It told me we would be DEBT free in 24 months! (Now, I did NOT include the house mortgage because let's face it, that would another 25 years or so...) I did cheat a little-- on some of our bills, we have it automatically taken out of the bank account and it is more than the min. balance. Instead of putting the min balance owed, I just put the amount that we pay each month. The calculator thinks that's how much we HAVE to pay, but it's how much we want to pay (ie the Yaris, and Nebraska Furniture Mart). I was able to cut and paste the awesome little chart into excel, so I can look at it when I pay bills. The same amount of money we are spending on our bills, just broken up differently to finally pay off the amounts. It's called Snowballing.
Can't wait to see if this actually works! Better yet, I can't wait to see if I actually stick with it!
So, even though I did not READ a book from Dave Ramsey's massive collection of books, I'm going to mark it off my list of 101 Things to Do in 1001 Days. I might even be marking off "paying off credit cards" and "pay of the Yaris" soon too!!
And just as a side note, I think it is really intersting that Dave Ramsey's "Financial Peace University" costs nearly $200.00... is that saving money?! I can't afford that right now!
It's maddening when people try to make a buck off of people who are trying to save one. One of the things I'm grateful for from our time in Japan is the money we've saved from knowing we wouldn't be here forever. We buy less things, knowing we'll either have to get rid of them or take them back to the states with us. Unfortunately, we're still paying off one more student loan. Thanks for all the info - I can't wait to check out this calculator!
ReplyDeleteI wish that I could be more frugal. A lot of people say I'm pretty frugal, but there are so many things that I could save on. We pay a lot of money (more than three times the minimun balance) on our credit cards, but this snowball effect is focusing our money to one area. We will be spending the exact same amount on our bills each month as we already do, just in a different amount. I'm anxious to see if I can keep up with it and I'm anxious to see if it will work. Good luck!
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