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October 2011 Moms
missyishere
member
Money help questions
missyishere
member
So, I will admit my DH and I aren't great with money. We pay our bills, but sometimes they're late. We have very little credit card debt, but our credit scores aren't great. We have savings, but we use it more than we should. How did you start organizing your money? Dave Ramsey: is he worth it and where to begin? I would like to be a SAHM for as long as we can, but our money may dwindle before I am ready to work again. I get anxious about the whole thing and become overwhelmed. I need some tips to get things going.
Parenting Floozie Brigades official motto: We welcome to you the board with open legs. Also, open beers. ~@cinemagoddess
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Re: Money help questions
What worked for me was to first, STOP putting anything on credit. If you can't afford it, don't buy it. Also, being able to pay cash for something and being able to afford something are different. That was a hard lesson for me to learn.
The second thing I did was pay down existing debt. Except for house and car payments, we had zero debt. We have some again now, but it's manageable.
Once I did that, it was really smooth sailing. As long as you don't start running up your debt again... you're good.
We ended up hiring a financial advisor since we have a few things planned (moving our family abroad, etc) that require severe discipline and planning. I just don't have that when it comes to money and neither does DH.
Turned our finances around. Amazing how little you spend when a professional provides you a bunch of visuals each month as to how much you have and what you can spend in order to end up with 'X' amount saved that month.
He just lays it out there. "You have this coming in this month. You have this going out to fixed bills. If you want to save this amount, you are only allowed to spend this much." Sounds dumb to have someone else tell you that, but we needed someone else to be the "boss" of our money because we didn't have the discipline (at the time) to do it on our own. He also helped us reduce our bills and cut our unnecessary spending which has, in turn, changed our lifestyle drastically to that of a much happier one with a lot less crap.
Worked for us, GL!
I am a neeeeeeeerd and I love to budget. This was the budget I started with when I graduated college and was out on my own for the first time. It is really easy and give you a little room to have fun.
https://money.msn.com/how-to-budget/a-simpler-way-to-save-the-60-percent-solution-jenkins.aspx
Burned by the Bear
My sister paid off 70k in debt with Dave Ramsey.
My tips:
I think one of the biggest things is to take all your bills/expenses and really figure out how much you pay just to live each month. You might be shocked to realize how expensive things are that you didn't really consider. If you are bad about paying bills on time, get on an autopay plan where it automatically deducts. I don't pay one bill (and I pay all our bills) with a check because of this. It saves me time and money in late fees.
Look at how much you make and see what the space between those 2 numbers is. Then you can find places to trim or add to your savings. It will also help you evaluate if you need to work, etc.