Matters of Money

After college my mother shared with me about Dave Ramsey and his principles the "Seven Baby Steps".  She was very enthusiastic about the baby steps and really worked to influence me to read his book, "The Total Money Makeover".  I did, and from that point on I was sold on a more directed path to financial freedom.

Having just graduated from college, and working part time in my field, I was making more money than I had ever known before.  I hurried to consolidate my loans, which meant that I missed on the 6 month period of deferred interest.  Then I made it my goal to pay my loans off as fast as I could.  I saved up my $1000 Emergency Fund, and started putting every bit of extra income towards my loan payments.  With just over $20,000 of school loans, I was completely payed off within 18 months!  Part of this time I was only working part time!  It became somewhat of a game to me to pay extra on the principle each month and watch the total go down.

Me & "Marley" , the 1969 VW Beetle in 2005

Honestly I enjoyed paying off my school loans.  Once I was paid off, I actually missed having a goal to pay down.  At that point, I had disposable income that wasn't accounted for.  I would save, but as soon as I reached about $5000 I would find something silly to spend money on.  One time I bought a beautiful 1969 Volkswagon Beetle from Northern California, off of ebay!  Keep in mind, I was living in Western New York when I made this purchase.  I had to pay a good chunk of money to have the car shipped across the country.  I affectionately called it Marley, because I really loved listening to Bob Marley at the time.  At the time, I had become a new home owner.  So I now had a mortgage to work to pay off.  I printed up the amortization table and every time I made an extra payment towards the principle, I would cross off future monthly payments.  If you've ever owned a house and looked at the breakdown of your mortgage payment, you know that in the beginning only a very small portion actually goes to paying down your loan.  I realized that if I only could simply match the amount payed towards principle for that month, then I would decrease the life of my loan by a whole month!  If I did that every month for a whole year, I could more or less decrease my 30 year loan by a whole year!  And as more of the loan is paid down, the impact is even greater.

I LOVE Dave Ramsey's 7 Baby Steps!  And they have worked for me.  For more information, check out Dave Ramsey's 7 Baby Steps.

With some financial freedom goals for our family brewing in my mind,  I found some great debt freedom charts . Most people accept the fact that they will probably always live in a state of debt.  This is an absolute lie.  There is light at the end of the tunnel, but as Dave Ramsey says:

Can you imagine living mortgage free?  That would be amazing financial freedom in my mind.  It's time to set some BIG GOALS for the near future.  With charts like this one hanging on the wall or refrigerator, our goals are visible every day.  Saying "No" to eating out, or using that really good coupon to buy something that we may not "need", means gaining something we really do need- Financial Freedom.                        Check out these DEBT FREEDOM CHARTS.