My Story

My husband and I never paid attention to our money. We had no idea how much was coming in or going out. We never balanced our checkbooks. We both had decent jobs so there was always plenty of money in the bank. And that right there may have been our problem – because we didn’t HAVE to watch it, we didn’t.

We lived on the theory that if we could afford the payments, then we could afford it.  If we could afford a higher car payment, we bought a fancier car. If we could afford the furniture payment, we bought new leather furniture. If we could afford the mower payment, we bought a shiny new zero-turn mower.  If we could afford the Best Buy payment, we bought a big screen television. And lastly, if we could afford the in-ground swimming pool payment, we installed an in-ground swimming pool. We were the King and Queen of credit.

At the time, we thought this was how it was supposed to work. If you could afford the payments, you could afford to buy it. We also liked to spend money. We loved restaurants, Target, malls, gadgets, and anything else that looked fun.

At this same time, we had quite a nice savings account. (No, it never occurred to us to use the savings to pay for some of these things because that’s not how it worked, or so we thought.) As the years went on, we slowly saw this savings balance go lower and lower. It caused us some concern but since we had good salaries and could pay our bills without any problems, we figured there was nothing we could do about it.

Life was good.

Now we’re at July 2007. I am casually browsing through iTunes looking for new podcasts to download to my iPod before going on a walk. At this time I’m very interested in real estate investing (More debt!) so I’m looking through the financial section for investing podcasts. The top rated podcast was some guy named Dave Ramsey. Never heard of him, but if he’s that popular then maybe I should download and see what he has to say. So I do and take off on my walk.

As I listen, I can feel myself getting sick to my stomach. He’s going on and on about how people are ruining their lives by borrowing money, living on credit, not paying cash for things, driving cars they can’t afford, wearing clothes they can’t afford, buying toys they can’t afford, having no plans for paying for their kids’ college and no plan for retirement. His speech literally stopped me in my tracks. He was talking about US.

After that podcast, I got my hands on everything Dave Ramsey: website, books, more podcasts, etc., I had to know more of what he was talking about.  Over the next few months I talked with my husband about Ramsey’s ideas. He was very cool to the idea and I know exactly why. It’s way more fun to spend your money as freely as you want rather than living on a budget well below your means. As time went on and we started to pay off the debts one by one, he got the same feeling of relief that I did. As each debt disappeared, more weight was taking off our shoulders. It was easier to breathe. It was easier to look at the bank accounts. It was easier to be happy. Life was just…easier.

I pray that every single one of you finds this same awakening. I hope that I can help you in that journey.

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