A few months ago I was telling my in-laws how blessed we have been in the past couple years that we have lived here. Money had been so extremely tight, and we were blessed in not having any expensive emergencies--none of us have been sick requiring a doctor visit and/or perscriptions, and neither of our cars have had any serious problems requiring expensive repair. They said that they have experienced similar situations. As soon as you come into a little bit more money, that's when the expensive emergencies arise.
Now that Chris has started his new job, we were able to put a portion of his first paycheck towards our emergency fund. For those of you not familiar with Dave Ramsey, I strongly suggest you get to know him. Whether you are in debt or not, following his Baby Steps will surely give you and your money direction in your personal finances. I have been a fan of his for probably the last five years, but not until a couple weeks ago have Chris and I become "gazelle intense" in becoming debt free. I'm so excited for Chris's next paycheck to begin knocking out our debt snowball. It brings so much peace to know that we have a plan to get ourselves out of our little hole the bakery left us with. There is light at the end of the tunnel.
Anyway, the first Baby Step is to put away $1000 emergency fund. I am so glad that we were able to do that because not even a week and a half later, our poor little 1997 Jimmy started giving us trouble and we had to dig into that account. We have had that car since before we were married, and it has been good to us for the most part, but recently it started having problems.
Sam and I were driving the Jimmy running an errand to the credit union during my lunch break. When I tried to start the car again, it wouldn't go. I was so frustrated and didn't know what to do. Chris was in Olympia working so he couldn't help. I was on a strict time frame where I had to drop Sam off at a friend's house and get back to work since I was the only one running the office that day. Sam recognized my concern, and he started to get scared too. He started saying that we were going to be stuck there forever! A little dramatic, but for a little guy, he didn't know better. We had our hood up, and people kept passing us by ignoring or possibly just not hearing Sam's sweet little plea, "Please will you help us?" Sam suggested that we say a prayer so Heavenly Father could help us find someone to help us. What a sweet little guy! I recognized that this would be a good teaching moment, so we said a little prayer, and shortly after were blessed to find a nice person willing to help. It was a temporary fix that helped us get to where we needed, and with our emergency fund that we just put away, we were able to fix the problem (we hope!) without having to go into more debt.
For those unfamiliar with Dave Ramsey, please go check out his book from the library, The Total Money Makeover. You can also check out his radio show weekdays at KNRS 570 AM from 7-10pm (if you live in Utah) or KCIS 630 AM from 3-6pm (if you live in Seattle area). It will change your financial life by enabling you to support yourselves, bless your loved ones, and to become generous to to those in need.
Seriously, stop reading this and go check him out! Now! :)
3 comments:
I love how quickly little children remember to ask the Lord for help, it is such a great reminder. What a sweetheart Sam is.
You've got to live like no one else so that you can live like no one else!
I've heard of Dave Ramsey, but never listened to him or read his book....because of your post, I'm borrowing it from a friend, I'll let you know how it goes!
Thanks for the primary advice on our blog a few weeks ago. We are also riding the Dave Ramsey bandwagon and are enjoying the ride!
Someone at church told us about Total Money Makeover last year--we got the book in March, I read it in a week, and loved every part of it! I started listening to his radio show this summer; as well, a co-worker let me borrow his audio copy of Financial Peace University shortly thereafter. Starting in August, we wrote up our first planed-for paid-ahead budget--it took us some time to get our momentum going, but we're finally to baby step #2 and it feels really great to be on the way to getting out of debt!
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