Live Like No One Else

We live on one income.

We don't have anything real fancy. We don't go on super duper exciting vacations. We don't have car payments. I don't have lots of diamonds or a closet full of designer clothes. Josh doesn't have expensive hobbies.

Yet, we are in debt. Stupid stuff mainly. Couldn't really look around my house and say, "yep, bought that on the credit card." because mostly we racked up our credit card with junk.

We don't have a ton (thinking of you, Melis, as I say "a toooon!") of debt. One credit card and a home equity loan. And of course our mortgage.

Even though it's not much, it still bugs us. We still want out from underneath it.

When I went in to talk to Greg, the guy at the bank, about refinancing our house for a 15 yr. loan he handed me Dave Ramsey's book. I knew he had been teaching a class here in town, we just weren't able to go. I was pretty excited to be handed the book.

Immediately I was on a kick to start this so-called budget thing that Josh and I, in almost 10 years of marriage, have never implemented. However, my husband wasn't as excited. After almost two weeks of me being this crazy, excited, we're-so-going-to-kick-debts-butt, girl...I realized my husband was wanting to pull his hair out.

So.

I told him I was backing off. To set and stick to a budget, both parties have to be on board. Even though I'm big enough for both of us...he was not on board and I knew this wasn't going to work.

I apologized (my so not favorite thing to do) and told him when he was ready to let me know. I told the Lord I really needed Josh's help with this. Told Him I wanted Josh to be as excited as me about becoming debt free.

He may not be jumping up and down excited but we put our income on paper. We looked at our financial situation. And I can tell he's excited to actually pay attention to where our money goes. Usually we just spend and spend and hope there's enough money at the end of the month to make the next month's house payment.

As we were looking at the numbers we wondered how we've been making it all this time. We used to pretend to budget and saw that we were throwing away money during the month that we could be saving. Now we barely make enough to make ends meet. Part of it is we now pay health insurance where Josh works, whereas Josh's old boss paid it for us before. That's a big chunk.

It wasn't pretty yesterday as I was putting numbers in. Stuff has to go. At first I just thought I could get rid of my cell phone and that'd be it.

Nope.

Internet's gotta go, too.

I kinda wanna cry about that.

As a SAHM this computer is my outlet. It's my way of kinda having friends. Having people older than 2 to talk to.

But are reading blogs, MySpace, email, news, weather, online banking more important to me than becoming debt-free, saving for my kids' college fund, and saving for retirement?

Not even close.

So, yeah, it kinda stinks that today or tomorrow is my last day online. But, Dave says, "Live like no one else, so later you can live like no one else."

It may be hard for a time but I know the end result is going to be worth it.

I'm not giving up blogging for good. I'm sure I'll find places to get online (ahem, Amber) and keep you up to date on the exciting life of us. :) And, if ya wanna email me, you can do that, too. Just view my complete profile and there's a linky-doodle dealio for my email address.

Wow...this is making me sad. I feel like we're breaking up. It's not you, it's me. ;)

I love all of you, even you who lurk and never comment, I know you're there and I'm glad you stop by. Thank you to those who have left comments and become part of my life. I appreciate you. I'm thankful for you.





If you want to become debt-free but don't know the first place to start, I highly suggest Dave's site. It's amazing the peace we already feel just starting! Anyone can do it. Anyone. It does require sacrifice. It requires hard work. But it's possible.