The idea behind this blog is for me to be accountable (to myself, mostly) about our financial situation. I'm tired of being in debt, and I'm tired of feeling poor. Without getting into detail, let's just say that between our two cars, and 4 credit cards, we are pretty deep in debt. And it doesn't feel very good. We make payments of about $1000 to this debt every month, and that's just making the minimum payments. That sucks. How great would it be to have an extra $1000 every month? We could actually start saving for retirement. As of right now, we have for retirement? Nothing.
I'm going to start trying to dig us out of this mess, using Dave Ramsey's principles, for the most part. So, the first baby step is to make a $1000 mini emergency fund. I'm starting right now with $200 in that fund, which is in a money-market account. Hopefully after next Friday, I will be much closer to the $1000. Ideally, I'd like to have $2000 in that fund. A $1000 emergency fund, and another $1000 to compensate for what Dave Ramsey calls our "fluctuating income". Part of our income comes from commission, so some months are better than others. The second $1000 is there, theoretically, to protect us against those not-so-good-months.
I realize this is not going to happen overnight. In fact, I'm thinking more like 5 years. 5 years sounds like a long time, but where will we be in 5 years if I do nothing? Probably still sitting here with roughly the same amount of debt. I'm going to try and document this journey so I'm more aware of what I'm doing and what we're spending. Wish me luck.
No comments:
Post a Comment