I'm horribly analytical. There's very little black and white with me. It took at least three days for me to decide which car to take to Detroit this weekend. What if, and what about that, and maybe this would be better... It can be really annoying. With finances I drive myself crazy. I think I should put the extra $10 towards the emergency fund but I'd really rather pay a bit more on the smallest credit card but we haven't eaten out in a long time and my husband has been so stressed lately (just an every day example).
The really nice thing about Dave Ramsey's financial peace plan is that it's completely black and white. There is a specific answer and correct way to go about everything financial. But on the flip side for an overly analytical person like me its torture not being able to control or devise my own plan. Thus for several years I've been implementing bits and pieces of Dave's plan, slowly, SLOWLY crawling out of debt and analyzing every financial decision I make along the way.
It took a long time but I finally came to agreement, after much much analysis that baby step one: $1000 in the emergency fund is essential. I also struggled forever with the cash only payment part of Dave's plan. But after pit fall after pit fall, again he's right. If you want to spend less, if you want to pay off debt faster, if you're anything like me and want to be more financially responsible paying with cash is the only way to go.
Okay what if, and I know alot you don't follow or wholly agree with Dave, but what if after years of driving myself insane with every little financial decision, what if I spend the rest of this year just throwing in the towel on my own madness and trying Dave's way, for real?
hmm, I'm going to have to think about this for a few days.
Hmm, I don't know enough about Dave's plan to say, but some flexibility is always good, and you know your life best.
ReplyDeleteOn the other side, if you did decide to go for it, you all would know it's just for a limited time only, expires on Jan 1, 2014.
Or, say, Aug and Sept are Dave's way, and then see what happens.
Ieva
Dave's plan works.. it's stringent and can be very annoying.. but it works. We paid off everything in three years (76k!!!!!!!!!) and have a 3 mo emergency fund saved up after doing MAJOR home improvements and paying cash for two vacations. We are now working on bulking the EF up to six months and saving for additional things we want to do and will need in the next few years (e.g braces). The freedom of having no non-mortgage debt and money to "spend/save" for things we want without guilt is absolutely amazing. The journey has really sucked at times, when I wanted to eat out or go out with my friends,and had to eat noodles or whatever or just say no, but that is a momentary annoyance; the next morning it feels great to have battled it down. Your creativity starts to outweigh the spending - e.g. how am I going to do whatever it is at the lowest/no cost? You come up with amazing fun things to do. Seriously, try it for six months for real and weigh it out. It's a tough thing to change your behavior, but it's simple and you focus on ONE THING at a time, which really really helped me.
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