My “Get Out of Debt” Journey: Part 2
Note: This is Part 2 of my “Get Out of Debt” Journey series. You can find the other posts in the series here.
To quickly recap Part 1, my family was $25,000 in debt with no savings, and seriously stressed out. Chet and I had enrolled in Financial Peace University, and were excited about the prospect of becoming debt free.
Our first class got us even more motivated. We met others who were in similar circumstances . . . some a little better, some a little worse. Our instructors had recently completed the class themselves. They explained that the concepts had greatly improved their lives and hoped the same would happen for us. Then we watched the first video. Dave Ramsey gave an overview of the program, and we learned that our class would consist of seven Baby Steps. Step One was to get $1000 in the bank for a starter emergency fund.
Dave told us we needed to put $1000 aside within one month. At the time, I thought he was crazy. We could barely pay all our bills, so how could we come up with another thousand bucks within a month? Then Dave told us how to do it. Sell a bunch of old stuff. Work extra hours or take a second job. Cut expenses. Or preferably all of the above.
So we did just that. We had some college textbooks lying around that we sold on Half.com. I took a second job teaching for the University of Phoenix. Chet taught summer school. We got on a written budget and cut back on expenses like eating out. I started clipping coupons and stockpiling groceries when they went on sale.
Within a month, we had scraped up $1000. We were proud to report to our classmates that we had completed Baby Step One. Now we could get serious about attacking the debt. Or so we thought.
Pretty nice post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say
that I have really enjoyed browsing your posts. Anyway
I’ll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you post again soon!
Nice… this should be a fun read. I like the serialized way you’re rolling this out.
Ha, how I have to subscribe!
Thanks!
Dave
Welcome, April! Hope to hear from you again.
LOL! Personal finance is so much more interesting when it really gets “personal,” I think. Looking forward to seeing you around!
Great Blog!
Just curious…how did you add your own avatar for your admin user? I can’t seem to find that in my wordpress admin panel. Thanks
Hello, Kevin. You can read all about adding an avatar to your blog here. http://www.dyers.org/blog/archives/2008/05/21/how-to-add-avatars-to-your-wordpress-25-theme/
And welcome to Recession Proof Living!
Andrea,
I found your site through a post you left on the Wise Bread Forums. I love Dave Ramsey! I found his podcast on iTunes over a year ago and have been a dedicated listener ever since. I even bought Financial Peace University. Using his teachings, I paid off $25K of car and student loan debt in a little over a year. Dave really did change the way I thought about credit.
Good luck!
Nice to meet you, Shawanda. We credit Dave’s teachings–and the grace of God–for much of our success as well. Best wishes to you also. Make sure to subscribe to the feed so you can follow the rest of the story!