I cannot believe it has been a whole year since Andrew and I started on the Dave Ramsey plan. My in-law's introduced us to it and I am so thankful! It is amazing the progress that we have made in just one year. We have cheated the plan just a bit because of job uncertainty and the economy, so we still have about 1/4 of Andrew's student loan left to pay off (which is NOT much considering the beginning balance!) and now we have a decent savings account. We need to double that before reaching step #4 but we're on our way.
(For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, you're supposed to pay off all debt before building your Fully Funded Emergency Fund and we went ahead and worked on the fund for a while.)
Andrew has started his own business, on the side, and it is rolling along. He worked for several hours last night and is getting ready to sent a rather large bill to one of his "clients". At times it feels like a black hole since the money goes into our business account but that business account will, one day, give our personal account a "pay check".
It is exciting to have this one-year anniversary.
It is amazing that we have had a written budget, on paper, every month, for one whole year.
It is amazing that at the end of each month, I have charted to see how close or far we have gotten from the budget and have a roll-over system set up that works amazingly well!
Here's to another good year!
4 comments:
Congratulations!! I love the idea of the Ramsey plan and we follow a modified version similar to the one you mentioned (simultaneous saving and debt elimination). We will be doing it for a year in July, and I too am amazed at the progress we've made. It's AMAZING the difference that planning for spending ahead of time makes.
I'd be interested in hearing about how your "roll over" works. Any money that we have left in the envelopes--we use actual envelopes and cash, not electronic ones--we just count as "income" for next month and allocate it accordingly. Our budget changes every month because Donnie and I both have part-time jobs with fluctuating income, so we redo our budget monthly based on income and needs. Do you use actual envelopes and cash? How does your roll over work?
I use a spreadsheet with line items. For example, we have about $20 for entertainment per month. We rarely have time to use this category, so if we don't spend the $20 one month, it rolls over and we have $40 for the next month, and so on. We don't actually use the cash system because I couldn't keep up with the withdrawing of cash and got discouraged. So, we use the debit card only. I just track everything very carefully!
That's awesome! Way to go!! We've been doing it for 2 yrs. (I think) and sometimes it gets so very discouraging and feels like we're not making progress (Aaron struggles more w/ this than I do), but then we look back at how much we've actually paid off on one relatively small income and it's amazing! My dad created a great Excel budget sheet that has been so helpful. We use all cash--I actually ordered the FPU wallet w/ envelopes. When it's gone, it's gone! :) It's helped me be more frugal w/ grocery shopping and learning how to stretch not only our dollars, but our food as well. I just wish we would have had this book the day we got married!
We actually got the cash envelope too but I just couldn't always get the chance to go get the cash so it got very frustrating to me. I'd like to pay with only cash someday but I've also discovered that I'll stop and buy more things with cash because it's like Andrew doesn't see what I spend with cash! Yikes!
I also have thought many a time how much further ahead we'd be if we'd been doing this since the day we got married! We'd probably be debt free by now!
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