Philosophizing

More Dave Ramsey

I will be taking no more vacations until I am out of debt.  The one possible exception will be family Christmas gatherings.  I turned down an invitation to go to lunch after church today because “it’s not in my budget.”  I came home and ate a sandwich and frozen dinner.  It felt good!  I have been listening to Dave Ramsey podcasts this weekend.  I’m getting pumped up again.  Great stuff.

Yesterday, I went into Quicken and put in realistic numbers and it looks like I will be able to have my $1,000 baby emergency fund set up on the 15th of this month.  It will be incredibly tight, but it should happen.  After that, it looks like I will get around $2,000 of credit cards paid off by the end of the year.  That will leave me with two credit cards totaling around $8,000 and a student loan and other loans adding up to around $12,000.  So that means that I am well on my way to get completely debt free by the summer of 2008.  That is ridiculously exciting.  More realistically, I am anticipating my net income going up between $100 and $200 a month very shortly after I get a raise and get rid of my cash value life insurance.  That could put me out of debt by the end of 2007.  I think that may be my new goal.  It will be hard.

Seven Habits

Stephen Covey’s Habit 2 is “Begin with the End in Mind.”  In this situation, that means that looking at the goal of being DEBT FREE is what guides my financial decisions.  Similarly, looking at the goal of being HEALTHY is beginning to guide my culinary decisions.