Ryan & I are finding that as we progress through the financial coaching, the intrinsic value of money is increasing. We have been listening to Dave Ramsey on CD and the first thing he says to do is to get $1000 in an emergency fund. Done. He later talks about saving money so you can pay cash for big projects. We seem to have lots of those around here with Ryan in a PhD program, the house needing a coat of paint before the siding is damaged and the baby due in September. We have actually saved enough money to pay someone to paint our house, and suddenly, we don’t want to anymore. The cash in the bank has become more valuable to us now that we have it and we don’t want to spend it on something we can do ourselves (or mostly Ryan can do, as my pregnant self will NOT be climbing a ladder). 

Before we started this process, we probably would have used the credit card to pay someone to paint the house, then slowly paid it off, paying much more in the long run with the interest charges. That money would have cost more because of the interest. Now without needing to do it, the money we have is now more valuable to us than that. I guess the peace of mind that comes with being able to pay for things has made a big impact on our lives already. Just having the credit cards paid off has relieved a lot of stress in our house. 

Hello again, we are the Oleson’s! After getting the budget on track and working together to make it work, it has been a lot easier than we expected. Now it hurts to spend money. But neither of us feels guilty over spending money for items that we need (and the occasional items we don’t) because we have budgeted for it. We did have another eye-opening experience last weekend due to our garage sale. Two major events occurred at approximately the same time: the garage sale and a birthday/coming home party. I recently had a birthday and we decided combine my birthday and a new job that I do not have to travel anymore into one celebration. The city garage sale happened to be on the same day. So we had to face the mound of junk and stuff in the basement….

After sorting, cleaning, pricing a lot of “junk” Friday night/very early Saturday morning, we opened the garage door at 7am promptly in 40 degree weather and waited for our first customer. While we were huddled together under a blanket with a space heater we discussed what was happening. The idea was twofold: get rid of a bunch of stuff we didn’t use and to pay for all the food we needed for the party with the money from the garage sale. As we waited and were not overwhelmed with customers, we lamented about how much money we had spent for things that were sitting on the tables and how much money we were asking for them. Purses purchased for $75+ had a price tag of $5. $19.95 DVDs priced at $3. The list goes on. As the day dragged on and the items slowly disappeared we realized two more things. We would never impulsively buy “stuff” again that would warrant a garage sale and we would not make enough money to cover the party.

On a positive note, the party was a really good time and we were able to give the leftover items to friends that actually needed some of the stuff we were selling. We did make enough money to cover about half the cost of the party, and since we happened to have a bunch of free time since not very many people came to the garage sale, I did the math. For the time spent cleaning/sorting/labeling/selling, we made approx $2.13 per hour for the both of us. So, it will be many years before we have another garage sale and instead of a garage sale, we will donate the unwanted items for a tax deduction.

We are so excited! We finally paid off our credit line from the bank, where we consolidated our credit cards last summer. Since we started Dave Ramsey, we paid off ten and a half thousand dollars in credit card debt (plus interest). This may not seem like a lot of some people, but to us it was such an impossibly large amount of money that we didn’t have any idea how we would ever pay it off.

We did it by sticking to our budget, by sticking to our envelope system, and by not buying anything that we didn’t really need. Coupons, sales, and creativity helped, and so did re-visualizing what “a lot of money” actually means. For instance, we spent about ninety dollars on our daughter’s very simple second birthday party (for which we also held an Easter egg hunt), and that now feels like a LOT of money, which it didn’t last summer.

Prying money out of ours hands is now an uncomfortable sensation. Now we can look forward to saving money instead of sending it to the bank to pay off debt!

Hello everyone! We are the Oleson’s. We were recently married, so we have been going through some changes. Once we settled into one house (and the other one sold!), we needed to figure out our finances and how to combine them. After a lot of discussion on how we were going to cut the debt, we asked Dave Ramsey. We then found out Dave says no a lot. We came up with a plan and put it into action, but we still needed some help. We lucked out because CommunityAmerica was there to help us. We met with our coach Stephanie and she pointed out some ways that we could cut our expenses even more (thanks Time Warner and level pay!), as well as some long term financial ideas that we have been looking at.

Right now we are trying to decide if it would be better to pay the house off in a few years or to really add to our retirement. That is, of course, after we pay off all the credit cards, student loans, and the car loan. To sum up the first couple of months, living on a budget really isn’t fun. Shannon’s Sephora and my Lowe’s quit being regular shopping trips, not to mention all the eating out and the disappearing money (that’s when you know you bought something and can’t remember what it was.) “Dave say’s no” is often jokingly said, but really the meaning is there - do we really need this or can we get by without it. Thanks for reading!

Well, things are a little more overwhelming this month. We have many goals, and we are impatiently working toward them. Trying to satisfy everything is simply not possible. We need to take baby steps. We are just so excited about the opportunity to see things as we didn't see them before, such as saving, cutting down on expenses, and paying off debt. It really isn't as difficult as it may seem at times. We are very ready to move forward and have a better life, but trying to keep two children busy and happy is difficult to do while also trying to save money and pay off debt.

We have already learned so much though, and we have become so much more aware of the opportunities we could experience if we stick to it and move forward. While we do have disagreements, in the end we are still working toward the same goals of saving money and paying off debt. We are so thankful for this chance to make things right. CommunityAmerica helps us to realize that change does not happen overnight, but that things CAN change. We are now using coupons ALL the time, learning how to pay off debt, saving every extra penny we get, and still try to fit in some quality time for the family without spending the money we used to spend. Some days are rough, but we are working toward it together as a family. In the end, we will be SO much stronger.