Our Financial Peace Journey

When we were dating we were determined to start our engagement and marriage by being responsible with our finances.  Compared to others I have heard about I would not consider us in "major" debt. I had some hefty student loans, a car payment, and one credit card.  Fortunately David has always been debt free. With having my debt and knowing we will be living on a teacher salary until he is out of Pharmacy school, which will be for the first five years, we decided to start budgeting and saving even before getting engaged.

Right after we got married we starting talking to my brother and sister in law about finances and Dave Ramsey.  In October 2012, we took a lot of what we had saved and went ahead and paid off my car to start baby step 2, debt snowball. Next we paid off my credit card (which wasn't much at all) and then we starting saving again. Building a savings more than baby step 1, emergency savings, isn't how Dave would have suggested but knowing that we were going to be moving again and getting a teaching job is not as easy as people say it is, we needed to know that we had money to fall back on in case I didn't get a job when we moved to wherever Pharmacy school was. 

My brother created the following spreadsheet for them to use when they first started out. Their spreadsheets have gotten a LOT fancier since this one but I continue to use this one because it is easier for me since it is the first one we started out with. *I tried to put a link to it on here but didn't know how so this is just a screenshot. Surprisingly, the calculation part of spreadsheets (=sum(cell number+cell number) ) isn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be.

This is just an example.  I only wish teachers made this kind of money each month! 

At first, for too long actually, we did not do the envelope part of this whole budget thing. Looking back I wish we had started living on cash a lot earlier.  Our [stinky] excuse was that we didn't live together most of the week so it would have been hard to keep track of envelopes therefore we budgeted and kept track of what we spent in each category.  Man, that was a lot of work. Turns out keeping track of receipts and having to update the spreadsheet everyday was way more work than getting cash out once a month.

October 2013 was our first month of actually using the envelopes. At first I felt it was going to be difficult, mainly because you see it literally leaving your hands.  We made it through, living quite comfortably I might add, made some adjustments, and now I love it so much.  I am such a nerd about using the spreadsheet, budgeting each category for the month, paying bills, "playing" with money once a month as I divide up the cash between our envelopes... When I started my teaching career, making "real" money, I wasted so much money and hated bill paying time more than anything.  I felt out of control and could not wait until I didn't have to think about paying bills.  Now I actually enjoy it.  Crazy I know!

Some would say we are crazy for having cash laying around and such. Well, first of all we don't have that much... I'm a teacher remember... Second, we don't take cash with us everywhere. We take what envelope we need and take that only, the rest stays in a safe.  Third, in such case some crazy thing happens that we need money and don't have cash with us, that is why we have an emergency savings. It works well for us.

Our current debt is only my student loans!  I've been out of school for 5.5 years and it seems like it is never going to end, but we see the total debt number going down every month so it is working. We both understand we will not be debt free until he graduates and we are no longer living on only a teacher salary.  Our debt snowball is still in effect but it is slow.  I love using the debt snowball spreadsheet my brother created to see the changes in total debt each month.

Again, this is just an example... I wish this was how much I actually owed! That would be awesome!

I totally recommend taking control of finances, in whatever way works best for your family.  It is so wonderful this is one of the many things David and I agree about.  There are so many stresses we all go through during marriage I am glad we don't have to stress over paying bills. If we can do it on a teacher salary while he in school for the first 5 years, I am confident anyone can.  We are not as "gazelle" about it as we could be, that's true, but we are taking steps forward.  

It has been a great experience. Looking forward to the day we call in or go visit Dave in person and do our "Debt Free Scream" --- FREEDOM!! (It will be ours one day!)

"I believe that through knowledge and discipline, financial peace is possible." -Dave Ramsey