You Talking to me?!?

For years now Callean and I had always felt financially trapped.  A lot of it we have brought it on ourselves and we were looking for a way out.  In real life there is no easy way to fix stupid.  I started looking around the internet for help on how to get out of debt.  I ran across a guy named Dave Ramsey.  I started reading his website and started thinking that this could work if we worked hard and stayed motivated.

I found out that Dave had a podcast so I found his channel on iHeart Radio.  When I turned it on the first words out of his mouth was "Hey you with the BMW.  You're so worried about what you're driving.  So worried about trying to impress people you don't even know or like.  When you pull up next to someone at a stop light they could give a flip what you're driving." I was like, man he's talking to me.  I thought to myself, "Justin you are so stupid.  He went to commercial break and when he came back on he said "You make $##,### (exactly what I make a year) and you can't do anything.  You're stuck.  You could change the lady's life sitting next to you at church by giving her $100, but you can't because you're broke.  You're broke because you've done stupid with zeros. " Wow.  I was definitely meant to hear this.  I felt so ashamed of myself.  I immediately called Callean and said we need to try this.

We sat down that night and discussed what we need to do to do the Total Money Makeover.  I bought his book and started reading.  The book was a HUGE eye opener.  Everything stupid we've ever done was discussed in the book.  He discussed the way to be wealthy would be following the 7 baby steps.

Baby Step 1 - $1000 emergency fund - DONE!!!

Baby Step 2 - Debt Snowball - This is where we are and will be for a while.  I will post specifics later so everyone can see our progress.

The key to the success of this process though is a zero based budget.  If you still have more money going out than coming in then you're not making true progress.  This has been the hardest part for us.  We have done pretty good this month following the budget but its been tough.

This is how we started our journey to a total money makeover.  I was meant to hear that on that podcast.  I'm glad God spoke to me through Dave Ramsey and hopefully we can stay motivated to live like no one else so later on we can live and give like no one else....