Any Dave Ramsey Followers??

[PrincessBelle09]

Yay for North Carolinians!

My goal is to be done with credit cards in November and done with student loans in February. Thankfully, I discovered Dave before having a whole lot of time to build up debt.

 

[SandrA9810]

i'm really thinking about sending my aunt to the financial peace program. I don't think just the book would get her butt in gear.

She just purchased a house, and she'll be saving money over paying rent. Taxes, escrow, insuarance, and all that still make it lower per month than rent.

But she's a huge spender at the store, ohh i need a treat, ohh i need a new movie it's only 5$. And she can crunch numbers in the checkbook like no tomorrow, she just doesn't know where it's all going.

She only uses one credit card but the balance is unbelievable. And she got so mad when they lowered her limit to just 300 above the balance, which truthfully she needs. She needs to be on a cash budget.

It's taken me a few years to learn to budget, learn to say no, learn that i don't need desserts. But she doesn't have time, i don't want to see her upside down in this house.
She says you can teach an old dog new tricks, it just takes longer... But she can't wait to figure all this stuff out.

It's a class i'd love to take as well... But i'll go the free way through the library and the help of DISers.

 

[PrincessBelle09]

You could get a copy of My Total Money Makeover for her and yourself, then read through and discuss it together. Dave has been running a $10 special on most items on his online store and I think it's still going on.

The book alone may not do it, but having someone to talk with her about finances and how Dave's principles change people's lives for the better could get the ball rolling. Sending her to FPU might be a little too much of insult unless she already recognizes that she has a serious problem and is just refusing to be a grown-up and fix it.

 

[SandrA9810]

she knows there's a problem, but she hasn't been able to tell herself no to her indulgences.

Because she's taking care of my g'mother, she feels like she has to take her out for dinner. Because poor ma has been sitting in the house all day and she's too tired to fix dinner. And it's not just a quick trip through the drive thu, it's to chile's or cracker barrel or her son's restaurant. Any where from 20-50 bucks for dinner. That's enough for a week's worth of groceries. A month's worth in just one week of eating out.

She knows there's a problem because i make her face it when we go shopping. And she also makes the comment' "see i could use you here", "you need to stick around to help me", "you're good at this (refering to sale/coupon shopping)".


I'm not perfect at the budget. But i still feel like i'm way better at it than she is. And she's been opening up to me about her finances. So i don't think she'd feel like it was an insult. She's signed up for classes before, free ones, but came up with excuses not to go. I think if i'm there with her, it'll give her that push to go and face it.

I'll check for the book, and if it's still 10$, i think it'll be a good investment.

 

[sayjackbrown]

Huge DAve follower a few months ago I fell off the band wagon and now am trying to get back on. I just recently found disboards and am so happy to have found others like me trying to save money for things that really count, thanks for all the great stories.

 

[DT83097]

I love DR!! Such common sense stuff - but of course I never realized that until I listened to him myself!! We've managed to pay off all our debts except the mortgage and have purchased a brand new furnace (unplanned) and new patio door (planned) with cash and it is so refreshing!! The timing was amazing because it was around the same time that I had to take a 20% pay cut at work due to the recession - but we were able to adjust pretty easily. We still have room to improve as we haven't exactly been gazelle about it but we are in such a better position than we would have been! Good luck to you and everyone else here!

 

[edk35]

I posted on another thread about my brother. He needed some guidance and I was asking questions on that thread about the DR program. Well he went out and bought the book and is reading it. He is seriously trying to get his debt under control.

 

[cush1]

I'm a big fan, too. I like Dave Ramsey and Crown Financial. Both have great resources! I'm sure Dave wouldn't approve of my DVC loan, but I did finance it on 5 years instead of 10.

DaveRamsey.com and Crown.org are great!

 

[palavra]

We follow a modified version of Ramsey's plan. We have a young child and really don't want to give everything up at this point, but we still will have managed next month to have paid off $10,000 in credit card debt in three years. I have 2 emergency cards, and Dh still has two card of less than $500.00 each to pay off. After that, we will have our mortgage and one car payment as debt, and that's it!

 

[DawnM]

Yup. We have been doing a Dave like program for about 4 years now. We have 3 paid for cars and have no loans other than our mortgage. We also have savings of 6 months in the bank as well as some other savings we could tap in to if needed.

We did sacrifice to make it happen. For example, when our A/C died upstairs and was going to be $4K to fix, we decided to wait until we were out of debt and had the cash to cover it. We all slept in the downstairs bedroom for an entire summer to save to do it.

We live differently. We vacation differently, we eat differently (don't go out all that much anymore!), and we overall spend differently.

It is well worth it and that Weight Watcher saying of "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels" applies here, only it is "Stuff doesn't feel nearly as good as security of cash in the bank."

Dawn