Our Total Money Makeover - Week 1

Well, we finally did it. We took the leap and have embarked on our own Total Money Makeover. Years ago my husband read Dave Ramsey's book and started talking about trying to implement some of his ideas into our finances but me feeling like we were doing things okay and managing our credit so that it worked for us didn't see the need to make any changes. Now after a few years and two kids later our finances are not as under control as they used to be so we decided that it was time to do something about it. We were just tired of always wanting to do something and never having the money to do it. It will still be a couple more years until we get to that point but once we do it will be great. The kids will be older and we will finally be able to go and do fun and memorable things.



Until this point we have used our Discover card to make all of our day-to-day purchases and earned the cash back bonus award. We always paid it off at the end of the month which is the only thing that made it worth while and until this point we have make over $500 off of the credit card company. But here lately that bill has started becoming harder and harder to pay each month. The only downfall to switching over to the all cash method is that we will be going backward first. Not having the money in the bank already we will be going into debt two months on the Discover card. But hopefully we will be able to catch it up quickly and get on track with our other debt.



We have been pretty smart about our debt in that we have never accrued much. All we owe is a student loan, one car loan, and our house. But the overspending each month and not sticking to our virtual budget left us with no extra money to save or invest in retirement. Now there should be no more overspending because when the cash is gone it's gone.



We did a trial run last week and it was a disaster. We fought everyday about not having enough money for this or that. Plus we went for a weekend at the beach with a couple of friends who weren't on any kind of a budget and where it didn't bother me it embarrassed my husband not to be able to keep up with his friend and to have to ask me for the money to go to the store. I was afraid that once we got home the whole deal would be off but he eventually got over it. He does realize that what we are doing (or attempting to do) will be worth it in the end.



So I'll keep you posted.