Yes, I think I am finding every way possible to avoid work today. :o) Well, it is very difficult to get anything done today as it is. While it has cooled back down to a decent 73 degrees, I have other distractions. First, the few things I’m trying to work on I’m stuck at a point where I need to get with other people to get past my current point…and not being able to get a hold of these other people makes it hard to keep moving forward. Other than that, we are apparently putting some kind of addition on at the back of the building and they are pouring concrete for the slab today. And being that the back with no access except through the side yard, I have a Bobcat running back and forth in front of my window carrying little loads of concrete to the slab, dumping them, running back for the next load, and so on. QUITE distracting, I tell you. So, I’m here, again.
As the title suggests, I was going to talk about financial freedom. As I mentioned a while back, my husband and I are doing the Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey, or as close to it as we want to. We did set up a monthly budget and use a cash system, we’re just not as super strict as we possibly could be, I guess. We’re on the debt snowball right now. Put all the “extra” money we have each month towards the smallest debt, once that is paid off, transfer everything you were putting towards that debt to the next largest, and so on until all debt is paid off, with the exception of a mortgage. In order from smallest to largest our debts were my car, our 2nd 15% mortgage, and Husband’s truck.
In one short week, I will be sending in the very last payment on my car (Woohoo!). So our original intentions were to then start paying off the 15% mortgage and have that paid off in about another year. Well, we have revised our plans slightly. With the economy as of late and risk of layoffs and such, we have decided to start building up our emergency fund before paying off all our (2) debts. While we don’t really see either of us losing our jobs at this point now, it would still be much nicer to have a little more padding in the savings account, just in case.
Our new plan consists of this. We will now put only what our car payment used to be towards our 2nd mortgage and then put all the rest of our “extra” money into savings. That way we’re still paying off the 2nd mortgage faster, just not AS fast and we’re building up our savings at the same time. Now, you might wonder why on earth we wouldn’t put that extra money towards the truck. Since a mortgage is way better debt than a vehicle. Well, we were lucky enough to get 0% financing on the truck so while it is debt, it’s kind of free debt since we’re not having to pay to use the money. Which doesn’t put us in a huge rush to pay it off early.
With this new plan, I think it means putting off paying off the 2nd mortgage until 2011 instead of 2010. Oh well…we might not even be in the house that long. And, I think (taking into account that neither John or I will probably get a raise this year) we might be able to have about $14,000 in the savings by the end of the year. How spectacular would that be?? We have a lot of saving to do though, since we would like to save up at least a 10% down payment for our next house instead of having to solely rely on our equity in our current house as our next down payment. Then whatever profit we make when we sell is just that, profit! Volvo, here I come! :o)
I know, I’m such a dreamer. But doing this Total Money Makeover really does make things like that seem very possible! If only we’d started just a tad sooner… Oh well, point is we did start and it will help us out tremendously in the long run. And I would like to think we are making some very smart decisions for people our age. I mean, we’re just in our mid-twenties yet.
So here is to everyone out there trying their hardest to be Financially Free! Way to go!
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