Baby Steps

I was shopping the other day online at Kohl's, who loves Kohl's?!?!  And I was using a gift card that I still had from Christmas.  Yes, I know it's middle of April and you are all wondering why I still have a gift card to use, right?!  I honestly am not a big shopper anymore and there's not been anything we've needed!  Anyways, I ended up purchasing 3 items that took me two different times to purchase them because I really wanted to know if I needed them, if we needed them.  The boys do not need clothes or toys, I couldn't find anything I LOVED that was cheap enough, and the clothes Ryan's needs were not on sale or cheap enough.  And household items really are not a necessity right now.

Well, as Ryan, my husband, and I are getting further and further into Dave Ramsey's Seven Baby Steps, I have found myself being more conscientious about what I am buying!  I use to add a few extra items to my cart while grocery shopping, since I was at the grocery store (usually Wal-mart), whatever was on the receipt was considered groceries, right?  WRONG!  You know you've done it, been keeping an eye a cute top, throw it in the cart, nobody will ever know but you!  That's where I went wrong.

I am so glad we are taking our budget more seriously now!  It's amazing how much money we've been saving just by being honest with ourselves and each other!

We sit down together every Sunday night and do our bills and budget for the week.  I didn't realize how much pressure this was on Ry every week until I started helping him.  He would tell me how much extra we had each week and we would usually go over but we were always okay!  We've both been pretty good about money and we have good jobs, so we were never worried but we also were not saving near as much as we could have been.  This also has brought us so much closer!!


With Dave's Baby Steps, you start by saving $1,000 for an Emergency Fund for baby step 1.  Dave's definition of Emergency Fund - "An emergency fund is for those unexpected events in life that you can’t plan for: the loss of a job, an unexpected pregnancy, a faulty car transmission, and the list goes on and on. It’s not a matter of if these events will happen; it’s simply a matter of when they will happen."  I totally suggest saving more than that for an Emergency Fund and I thought Dave did too but I cannot find anything online right now about that.

Baby Step  2, is pay off all debt using the Debt Snowball.  This is genius!  Per Dave "List your debts, excluding the house, in order. The smallest balance should be your number one priority. Don’t worry about interest rates unless two debts have similar payoffs. If that’s the case, then list the higher interest rate debt first."

This all sounds pretty easy, huh?  It is hard at first, but so worth it!! 

Well, we can all pay off our debt!  I suggest sitting down with your spouse and list out your expenses and get serious about saving!  It can be done, the first few months are a struggle until you see how much money you're saving!  There are so many helpful tools on Dave's website and so many people out there saving like crazy, research it and even ask around your church! It is amazing to me looking back at all of the purchases I made, why did I make them?  Usually impulse since it was such a great deal!  But honestly, was it something we absolutely needed?  Usually not!

Live today like no one else, so tomorrow you can live like no one else!  Love it when Dave says that!