My Experience with the Dave Ramsey Plan

This morning I woke up, went to the bathroom, fed my three kids and got rid of a pet.

That's right - a pet.

Well, it felt like a pet anyway. It had been around so long, it certainly felt like it.

This morning, thanks to lots of hard work on our part, a refund from Uncle Sam and our state and a little bit of this month's 'debt snowball', we no longer owe Chase any money! It is paid off!

This morning, at about 8:15 Central Time, together we hit 'confirm' sending almost $4000 to Chase and eliminated our last credit card.

We still have a long way to go to be debt free but we're on our way! We still owe about $1212 on one car, but that should be paid off soon too. We owe a lot on our student loans - about $73,000 - and, of course, our house.

For almost two years now, we've worked the Dave Ramsey plan. We started his course, Financial Peace University, in June 2005, when our third child was about 6 weeks old. Since then we have paid off or cash flowed over $20,000. We have borrowed no more money - except for the house - and will not borrow anymore. We've paid cash for that last baby, are paying cash for the next one, paid for over $1000 in dental work, tonsils, adenoids, and tube surgery for our oldest daughter, new tires for both vehicles, paid off our 1999 Toyota Sienna and other medical debt. It is so freeing to only spend money on what we can pay for and we do not have to worry about that taco dinner following us around for the next 10 years while we struggle to pay it off.

In early February, the company my husband works for announced a new bonus structure. They have a certain dollar amount they are supposed to try to bill every month. They are required to do 80% of that amount. If they do 90% or more, they get a bonus. Well, he was projecting to do about 86% for the year. More than he had to, but not enough for the bonus. He has been working his tail off to get to that 90% mark. He has worked late 3 or 4 nights a week, he goes in for several hours on Saturday (after for teaching for 3 hours at a community college - his second job) and so on. He has filled in for people on vacation, doing their billing for that week and it looks like he is going to make it! That bonus will pay off the car and put us at the end of 'Baby Step 2'. It will help us buy a little bit of furniture for when the baby comes (the big girls will get bunk beds so the baby has a crib to sleep in - but we are buying them used from a friend) and, hopefully, allow us to get away for a few days.

It is our tenth anniversary in May. We started out with no debt but our student loans and by the time our anniversary is here, we will be debt free except for student loans and the house.