I have a love hate relationship with a financial guru I watch on TV, Dave Ramsey. He is a Christian, no nonsense, almost arrogant guy who makes no bones about being right - I love that part. Then there is the part I hate, I feel like there is no way we could obtain his wealth or restraint. His basic mantra is, if you don't have the cash you cannot have it, and if do not have the cash saved for emergencies and retirement you can't afford it either. No car payments, no credit cards, no mortgages, and certainly no IOU's of any kind. A few years ago I was certain he was right, then I stopped using credit cards, and started paying off balances. But I made a lot of money then, now not so much. Then with medical expenses we drove up the credit card debt and I am freaking out over it. So I am back on his bandwagon.
Today after a really nice morning and lunch with C I started balancing the budget. Something I have been avoiding like the plague since I began the moving process. I transferred the BOA account to USAA previously, as you may have read and today paid off our AMX card. That card we only use at Costco, we decided to keep that one because the balance you can have is low and perfect for plane tickets in a family emergency. Then there is Discover, yikes. That one is a mess, we moved on that one, and that is the one we use when we just don't know how much money is in the checking account. Oops. So I put a hold on that one. We can't use it, I think it is going to take about six months to pay off then we are going to cancel it. Once that is done we can work on the big IVF / USAA one.
Meanwhile, I bumped up our savings allotments and set the utilities on auto pay programs so that we owe the same every month no matter what. Electric is high, but everything else seems reasonable to me. Plus with the new house we actually make money, even after the utilities. The extra money pays for cable and one student loan bill each month. Plus this month S was TDY an made a little extra, so we bought C school clothes, went to Busch Gardens (free for military), and managed to leave money in the savings account in August. (that's a first) So I am pretty hopeful about the whole money thing now. Seems like we are on the right track.
2 comments:
Good for you! Money definitely goes fast and credit cards are nice to have but really nice when they are paid off. Jess does our financial things now and Boy am I glad I dont have that stress on me anymore.
And Dave Ramsey's all about the right track! I've been wanting to get my foot into a financial thing like that but haven't yet. That's great that you're getting there!
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