In 2013, we purchased this as our family Christmas gift.
I had been listening to Dave Ramsey off and on for years, and his ideas made sense to me. We wanted to hit our debts hard in 2014, knocking off as many as possible. Moving twice in a year and a half had not been good for our bank account, and the school debt…let’s not even talk about that. We had four kids before we left dental school, and the pile of debt to prove it. We were SO TIRED of paying so much of our income to debts, and wanted them to go away more than anything. We also wanted our kids to learn the financial principles that Dave taught, so we decided to have a financial family night one night each week until we finished all of the lessons in FPU. We were pumped up and excited the first week. We sat all of the kids down and turned on the DVD with workbook in hand, determined to learn something that would make a difference in our financial family tree.
Within 15 minutes, all of the kids except Jordan and Andrew were asleep. So much for making it a family affair. We quickly gave up on that idea, but I was still set on making it through Financial Peace University as a couple. For a few weeks we were diligent learners. We watched the DVDs after the kids went to bed each week, completed the workbook pages, talked about ways in which we could improve, and did our best to follow through with those things. Dave’s ideas were not new to us, but we had fallen off the bandwagon and needed a reminder and a little more motivation, and those lessons provided that.
Things were going pretty well…until February came, bringing lots of rain to the parched desert where we live. During one storm, we turned on a ceiling fan and got a shower from the water that had collected on the blades. Upon further investigation, we discovered that our roof was leaking. We had lived in our home for less that one year at that point, and the home inspection that we had prior to purchasing the house did not say anything about the roof needing attention. Of course. When a roofer came to inspect the damage, he told us that the entire roof needed to be replaced because the felt underneath the tile was completely worn out…for only $20,000. Pocket change, right? We didn’t exactly have that kind of money laying around…our $1000 emergency fund was not quite enough…but we also could not afford to let the roof keep leaking and causing more interior damage.
So much for the Ramsey plan to never borrow money again.
That kind of threw us off the course that we had set out to follow, and things just went downhill from there. A few months later, after several septic system back ups…which are not pretty, by the way…we had to get a new dry well to stop that from happening…for another $6000. There is something about needing to flush the toilet, take a shower, and do the laundry that necessitates having a working septic system.
Right after we fixed that, historic rainfall in Phoenix did a number on our yard:
Carson’s bedroom flooded, resulting in some necessary repairs and new carpet, and the cost to fix the drainage problems in our yard to keep this from happening again was over $15,000. I could not sleep well at night until those repairs were done. Every time we saw a cloud in the sky I would get nervous, wondering if our house would flood again. It may never rain like that in Phoenix again, but knowing how vulnerable we were did not sit well with me. Honestly, I wanted to jump ship and sell the house, but I knew that we would not be able to do that unless we fixed the problem. One way or another, it had to be done.
Let’s just say that 2014 did not exactly turn out how we hoped it would in the financial department. We never finished Financial Peace University, and it has been collecting dust for the past year.
I stopped listening to Dave’s radio show, and tried to put this whole plan out of my mind because it made me so frustrated every time that I thought about it. I could hear his voice in my head, telling me about all of our stupid financial decisions. I could hear him telling me that we never should have taken out student loans…even though we never would have finished dental school without them. I could hear him telling me that we never should have moved in the first place, let alone twice within a year and a half…but we really felt like we were doing what was best for our family, which may be difficult to understand for somebody who did not feel the turmoil that we felt, and the peace that came only after we decided to move. I wanted nothing more than to have these debts go away…and for my house to stop needing huge repairs…but those two things were both out of my reach last year.
Now it is a new year, and you’ll never guess what my financial goal is…again…
It is time to recommit.
We still have a huge mountain to climb, but we are going to work on it one step at a time. We are going to hope that our house will hold up without needing any major repairs this year. That would sure help. We are going to hope that it is a good year for the dental practice. We are going to try to be wise with the resources that we have, knowing that this is going to take some time, and being patient with that process. Fingers crossed that all goes as planned, and that we will be able to knock off all of our debts except the student loans this year. Those student loans, well…we will get to them…eventually. I know, I know, all of you Dave Ramsey fans…they just might feel like a pet by the time we are done…a very expensive pet…
What are your tips for getting out of debt? If you have any wisdom to share, please do so.
We too did FPU at home about 3 years ago. And we too are drowning in my college loans and my husband’s undergrad and law school debt. We’ll probably have those forever too! We got married 1 month before he started law school and I started out working but turned into a stay-at-home mom about a year in. We had to babies while he was in school and because his school put a cap on the amount of loans a student was allowed to borrow, we resorted to credit cards for living expenses since my hubby could only work during the summers while in school. How DUMB is that!?!?!?! But at the time it felt like we had no other choice. I could have worked but I just couldn’t leave my babies. We had lofty ideas of how easy it would be to pay them off as soon as he got a job. Well, we’re almost 10 years removed from law school and we are still paying on those credit cards after too-many-to-count balance transfers to keep them at 0% interest. I will tell you that during that first year after watching the FPU DVD’s, we paid off about $12,000 in credit card debt (about 1/2). We pinched every single penny! We didn’t spend any money on anything other than absolute needs. It felt fantastic!! Then last year, my husband ran in our county’s election for Prosecutor. It drained us financially and in every other way. He won though…praise the Lord! So with that came a pay increase and now we are back on track. Paid $2,000 extra toward the credit cards just this month. YAY!!!!!! We’re planning to re-watch the DVD’s soon to get re-motivated. All of the principles are wonderful but just like you were sharing regarding the debacle with your home…life happens and sometimes we have no other choice but to take several steps back. Frustrating! I am excited to get back to pinching pennies though. It really does feel good and fits right into my simplifying plan as well! 🙂
It is good to know that we are not alone! We have been out of school for almost 8 years now and we have not even scratched the surface of the student loans. I, too, thought it would be easy to pay off once he had a job. It’s funny how things like taxes and running your own business drain what you thought would be a gold mine when you started. Those who think lawyers and dentists are rich don’t really understand the student loan factor. We will get there eventually, I have no doubt, and so will you. Congrats on your husband’s job promotion! That is awesome!
Thanks for sharing this. My husband and I have also “struggled” with our debt over the past few years. We have student debts that aren’t even my primary concern right now as we try to tackle the debt we acquired though going without work at times and most recently from moving across the country! That was an expensive one! Sometimes it has been a real struggle to feel like we are so far behind so many others around us- friends who have been able to to purchase homes, go on vacations etc. while it seems we are just merely getting by but I am coming to understand and realize that we all have different trails to face and these things will make us stronger. One of our biggest goals this year is to eliminate all of our debt aside from student loans (those will take a bit longer to pay off)!! I know it will be a challenge especially since we are still dealing with a lack of work at times. But where there is a will there is a way!!! I hope it works out for you too 🙂
Thanks, Jordan! We will be working at the same thing this year. We’ve also been there with moving across the country, so I feel your pain. I hope all the stars align for you…and for us…this year. Thanks for sharing.
My husband and I are working on the debt thing this year, too. He is an Army veteran and was medically discharged in 2012, a mere 2.5mos after we made the decision for me to stay at home with our first child (and found out right before my last day of work that we were expecting our second). We were spending foolishly during our double income times (except for in our first year and a half to two years of marriage where he was deployed and I was working full-time, and my full income, minus tithe and offering at church, went to my student loans), and continued that time of mindset once we were a single income family. It was during his second unemployment time post-military that God really got ahold of us. It was a huge awakening, and pretty painful at that, but one that we look back on fondly. Over those almost 2 years of craziness (Army, no job for 6 months, birth of second baby, job for 9 months then let go from said job, no job for 4 months, pregnant with third baby, low-paying job with crazy hours for 3 months before obtaining better job, no working hours for over a month due to waiting on government to process certain paperwork, plus normal life in there somewhere), we accrued about 13,000 in credit card debt to stay afloat, a 4-yr car lease to account for negative equity from frequently trading in cars with loan balances still on them, and drained our 2 savings accounts. During the 4-month unemployment time, I began meal planning each week and purchasing only what we needed for those meals and the week… something I’ve struggled to do prior to that. It has been such a huge blessing for us. I finally began budgeting this last September (another area of major struggle for me in our 6 years of marriage), and in October paid off one of our credit cards… talk about motivation to press forward! December 31st, we paid off a second credit card (made our checking balance lower than we’re used to seeing at any given time, but we agreed that we would be hyper-vigilent this month about the money going out so that we could pay that one off). We still have 2 credit cards left, but are using the payment amounts from the first two cards to put toward the next one… and plan on using tax refund (whatever that might happen to be) and any extra paycheck money (hello 3 paychecks each for May and October this year!). Since we’re working with a certain amount in bills each month, even if a certain payment is fulfilled and not needed for another month, we’re keeping the amount in the budget and applying toward debts. It’s the plan anyway 🙂 Lord-willing, we should hopefully have our largest credit card debt paid off and just have one left! My husband and I found that in order to really get the debt gone, we have to be aggressive with it (as much as we can with the income/expenses present for any given month)… November was a “lazier” month (our third was due at the end of the month, and actually came on Thanksgiving) as I was having a harder time moving around and cooking and such, so we didn’t do much in the debt department during that month… we almost got stuck in that rut for December but decided to kick it back up a notch, and are so glad we did. Budgeting is huge, and my husband and I frequently talk about what goals we have and how we want to go about accomplishing them… he works hard for the income God provides, and I work hard to manage it, so it’s crucial we work together on a unified plan 🙂 End Novel. Oops lol.
It sounds like you guys have had a crazy few years. Good for you for cracking down and paying off those credit cards. I know that budgeting is huge, and we do try to stick with a budget. It is sometimes difficult to feel like cutting a little bit here and there will even make a dent in the massive amount of student loan debt that we are talking about here. We really should be more diligent about it, though. I’m sure that small victories would really help to give us the momentum that we need. Thanks for sharing.