Money Matters
TMILLER45
member
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Total Money Makeover
After being a lurker on this board for a long time I finally read Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover that has been highly recommended by all. I'm ready to begin my journey and I'm very excited and motivated! I just wanted to know, for those that are doing it, what step you are on? How long has it taken you to get there and did you really struggle with it?
Re: Total Money Makeover
We are on baby step 5 and 7. We've already completed step 6.
Both my husband and I come from very frugal families, so we never really had a lot of debt when we were married, I had some student loans we paid off quickly. The struggle for us was paying off the house- we both had a house when we got married, and couldn't sell mine. We buckled down to pay off our house first, and then rolled that over to paying off the house we now use as a rental house. It also helps that we live in a LCOL area, and bought houses well under what we were approved for (both together we paid around 200k). The most radical thing we did to do this was to accept a job moving overseas for an unknown amount of time that drastically increased our income. We were able to pay off the more expensive house after that, and continue paying on the rental house until we got it paid off in April. It took us 3 years of marriage to get my student loans and the houses paid for.
So glad you're on your way to financial freedom! We JUST completed Baby Step 2 yesterday, and I can't even begin to tell you how good it feels to have the debt paid off. My hubby and I got married 2 years ago; he had no debt, but I had carried $30K in student loans into the marriage. He was so sweet and worked really hard along with me to pay them off. We don't make a huge amount of money (especially this past year when he's been in graduate school), but we drive old beater cars, cook from scratch, don't go to the movies, etc. and all of that finally paid off (no pun intended, hehe). This past year, we made a combined total of $28K (for the both of us -- that's what you get when one of you is a full time student and the other is a musician!), but managed to put $13K of that onto our debt and finally pay it off, while living off the other $15K.
Stick it out, even when it's tough, because it's totally worth it! Best wishes to you! I'm here if you need ideas to keep you rolling, but Dave has probably given you tons to work with already.