Bye Bye Debt!!

We have let Dave Ramsey into our house! Adam's sister Jena and husband Matt have been talking to us about Dave Ramsey and his steps to becoming debt free and saving money. They have been using his "baby steps" for a few years and paid off alot of their debt. Adam and I meet with several couples from our church on Sunday nights and right now we are doing several weeks of DVD's with Dave Ramsey. "The Baby Steps" include seven steps to help you get out of debt and save money for the future. The seven steps are:

Step 1: $1000 to start an "Emergency Fund"

Step 2: Pay off all debt using the "Debt Snowball"

Step 3: 3 to 6 months of expenses in savings

Step 4: Invest 15% of income into Roth IRA's and pre-tax retirement

Step 5: College Funding

Step 6: Pay-off home early

Step 7: Build Wealth and Give! (Mutual funds/Real Estate)

We are reading his book "The Total Money Makeover" and have watched two of Dave's DVD's which got Adam and I excited to start the steps! We are on step 2 working to pay off our car and student loans. We are lucky not to have credit card debt so we are working on the car first and then our student loans. It may take 1 1/2 to 2 years for us to pay off our car but it is better than the 7 year loan we have. I always thought it would take us 15 years to pay off our student loans but knowing we could have them paid off within 5 years is awesome!

If you haven't heard of Dave Ramsey you can go to his website at http://www.daveramsey.com/. He is a great speaker and is an advocate of no credit cards. If you can't afford to pay cash for it then you don't need it!!!!! I haven't cut up our credit cards just yet but looking forward to the day that I do.

Hopefully once we get all our debt paid (except our house) I will be able to be a stay at home mom. We can make the sacrifices now so later we can enjoy financial peace!