I'm still making my way through it, reading a few pages when the baby lets me but it's gonna get real folks... Who knows maybe we'll be able to actually do a 15 year mortgage instead of a 20 if we can anchor down.
While we have never been commercial debt people and we don't have any debt but our mortgage, I feel like there is going to be a lot of life lessons along the way. I'm hoping the book will help us make better choices and learn more about making our money work better for us.
Since we don't have debt, we'll need to get creative with building our "snowball" but hubs is on board. He hasn't read the book and might not, but he sees the wisdom in moving in 5 years or less and he knows having a plan is better than not having one.
Not going to lie-I am not a huge fan of Dave Ramsey, and he seems geared towards people who live paycheck to paycheck, not seasoned financial mavens like yourself. It seems to me that you and your DH have done pretty darn well on your own, weathering unemployment while still building/maintaining your savings. Are you just looking for a fresh outlook?
ReplyDeleteBasically yes. I've never ready through his material before (just listening to the radio show many years ago), but my husband is on board for buckling down when I showed him what larger places are costing and what a mortgage on one of those places would be like.
DeleteWith our current estimates, we would be able to move in 5 years when we eliminate daycare costs and have a 20 year mortgage which we would finish paying when I turn 55 and can retire-- so we'd be free to leave this HCOL area if we wanted to. I'm hoping we might be able to pick up steam and be able to get a 15 year mortgage to make up those 5 years we won't be funding Roth IRA's.
This book is what really got me and my husband on our way to financial fitness (plus the WIRR)! We are on baby step 4 and it sounds like you are too. ��
ReplyDeleteYa, we were aiming for the 15% to retirement when we paused to prepare for the baby (aka spending money to make our condo still work for 3 people)... and now I guess you would say we are on Baby step 3B -- saving for a house down payment by accelerating our mortgage payments to make sure we don't accidentally spend the money on furniture.
DeleteI am interested in seeing (and learning for myself) how you guys build a snowball without debt. I too only have mortgage debt but am always looking for ways to be smarter with my money. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteMe too.
DeleteI got the hubby to agree that we won't spend any of the overtime he brings in (which means really living the whole written budget concept down to the T, instead of just making sure we could cash flow purchases before making them....) So it means there will be more delayed gratification/purchases since we only have our fun money and the $100 un allocated funds for "discretionary" items.
I'm also thinking we might put a "cap" on some of our sinking funds so when it hits a comfort level thats okay for this stage in our lives, we can divert that money to the mortgage for the month instead to give us a little extra boost... For instance, Hubs has agreed that the only vacation/traveling we will do in the next 5 years or so is to visit family out in Utah because Eli will be too young to remember anything else. We currently have $1100 saved in our vacation fund. On the high end, a road trip to Utah will cost us $500 to visit family, so we may decide not to put anymore money in our vacation fund and skim it down to $1,000.00 (one planned trip and an emergency trip perhaps?)
I would evaluate all of the sinking funds and think about what caps for each might be. Obviously the ones tied to annual bills are easy to cap, but I think it really makes sense to divert money to the mortgage sooner than later to get maximum impact out of the plan.
DeleteI brought it up with the hubby last week but well discuss it for our next budget meeting. I think we might cap vacation to $1k, Roxy to $1k, and medical to $1k (but with medical, i'm renting a hospital pump each month so that one won't go away anytime soon).
DeleteOkay, I want to caution on not doing things because 'the kids won't remember it." Even if they don't remember specific details, everything you do with a child shapes/forms him or her in some way and some of my most memorable moments are when my sons were toddlers. Obviously they don't remember every detail, but I sure do :) Just don't feel like you have to become shut ins; those young years go by so fast, and there is NOTHING like the wonder of a young child. Also, a lot of times we asked for tickets/experiences when people asked what they could get our boys for Christmas/birthdays/etc. Best of luck to you guys and hitting those goals; I know you can do it!
ReplyDeleteWe have birthday and Christmas sinking funds and our annual profit share checks to make things fun still -- but just on a smaller scale. I'm a big experience person. I'm not huge on stuff, so I could see us doing things as a family instead of buying things.
DeleteFor example, my local city does a 1 night camp out every summer and it maybe costs $10 a family... So I could see us doing that as a fun activity when he gets a bit older. Same with the free movies in the park, etc. Its just prioritizing the fun :)