As most of America knows, our financial system started to implode in the fall of 2008. At that time, Ashley and I had a small one year old girl, a mortgage, and a car payment. While we were not struggling by any sense of the imagination, I felt like we were carry too much debt and that we could do better with budgeting our expenses. So, as I am wont to do, I began to gather information and develop a plan. One site I began to read fairly regularly was The Simple Dollar. While he posts a good bit of information on how to get your finances in order, I found that I tended to use his stories more as inspiration than as practical steps to follow. One book that I read that had a profound impact on how I look at our finances is Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness
After a year of work, we finally managed to increase our savings to a fairly comfortable mark of six months worth of expenses and eliminated all non-mortgage debt. Additionally, we eradicated the use of all of our credit cards and have migrated to a cash-only household (well, cash and debit cards) — we have not used any form of credit in around two years. Now, we are well on our way towards paying off our mortgage in another four years and have been able to expend a bit of capital towards household improvements. As we are doing this, I have been looking towards the future. The Millionaire Next Door
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Hey that’s great news Jonathan! Glad to her y’all are living with out credit (minus mortgage), we accomplished the same thing when we paid off our last car about a year ago. We’re not gonna have the house paid off in 4 years (that’s amazing) but that’s a milestone I can’t wait to hit. Now I’ve just gotta resist the temptation to take out another car loan in a few years…
I hope you do get a chance to try your hand at your own business some day. I hope to do something as well, but that day will have to be after Mikayla is in college.
My goal is to be able to pay cash for our next vehicle. Of course, both of ours are in good shape, so we won’t be doing that for some time.
If you’re still casting around for things in this vein to read, I highly recommend the Motley Fool books. They seem to bridge the gap between the “We’re drowning in debt because we don’t understand a budget” how-to books and the “Where should you invest your millions?” books – something nice and practical for “So you’re stable and you’d like to plan for the future; what now?” They also have a touch of humor throughout, so they’re actually a fun read.
Wow, I haven’t thought about the Motley Fool books in years. I cut my teeth on a couple of those 10-15 years ago. I wonder if I still have them…