My husband and I started our marriage in the middle of the desert, financially speaking. We had good incomes but spent like there was no tomorrow. We worked in the same building from the time we were dating and into the first several years of marriage so we met for lunch dates at good restaurants downtown. We both had car payments. We sent the kids to a good daycare and a private school for kindergarten. We had every channel on cable TV. We had at least 5 credit cards. We always paid the payments on time and put plenty of money into our 401(k) plans, but we were wastefully burning through our money with very little to show for it other than credit reports in the high 700’s. (We came to learn later that a credit report is a measurement of your success in paying interest on time. You can be broke and have a good credit score.) We had all the trappings of convenience and impatience that our society feasts upon: credit cards, car loans, student loans, store credit cards, magazine subscriptions, book clubs, and even a gym membership. We had the money to go on vacations. Despite a house payment of less than $500 a month, we weren’t making extra payments and we definitely weren’t saving any money. The picture is probably becoming clear to you now – we were like most middle class couples.
Something happened though. My husband started reading a little about personal finance and he started listening to Dave Ramsey’s radio show, which was on in Oklahoma City in the afternoons in the early 2000’s. We also happened to visit a local church during a sermon series on the biblical handling of money. We both knew right then that we had to make a change. We had a chat about it and decided to get serious. We made a spreadsheet on our computer to track our spending. It wasn’t really a budget, but just seeing where the money was going on the computer screen was enough to give us both indigestion. Our money was going into a big toilet that didn’t do anybody any good. We had to make a change. We were making good money but we were spending all of our money and had no savings. We had nothing to show for our spending.
Tags: Getting Out of Debt