On Being a Gazelle

I am trying to catch up from our trips to Texas and South Carolina (to drop off and pick up the girls from a Grandma and Pa Pa vacation). Laundry is nearly caught up, house is a disaster, school is limping back to the track, and I'm working 20 hours/week in between.

So, dear readers, as much as I enjoy our time together, I have to cut back a bit somewhere. Posting will be generally light.

I did, however, want to pass on some really happy news.

Back last year, we bought that beautiful minivan, which we oughtn't have done, and I realized before year's end that if we were to stay afloat around here, we had to sell it. Just after that decision was made, we were still floundering a bit as to how to organize our finances better. One of Travel Man's friends at work gave him a set of CDs and a book by Dave Ramsey. He read The Total Money Makeover cover-to-cover in a few days and pushed me to read it, too. Though I reisisted a bit (who wants to read about how stupid they have been?), I found the book to be warm and friendly towards people who have made mistakes and are ready to change. Plus, Dave is funny!

We got on board. We became gazelles. We sold that van ASAP, took our tax refund and set up an emergency fund, and started writing down everything we spent and made up a written budget. When we looked at May's budget in late April, we set aside money for a trip to Texas and money for food on our trip back and forth to South Carolina. (We came in under budget for the trips, too.) We set aside money to replenish the emergency fund after I paid off my medical bills. And we've paid stuff off and cancelled cards. (Though Dave likes cutting up the cards right away, I take great pleasure in shredding them as we pay them off.)

When we got back from the last trip to SC, Travel Man discovered that my cooling fan wasn't coming on in the Jeep any longer. The mechanic discovered that this was the reason my A/C wasn't working very well (a bill that was paid for out of the emergency fund), and they went ahead and fixed it for me.

When they told me it would run about $650.00 installed, I said, "Okay. Do what you have to do." Mind you, they only take my debit card, cash, or a check. And I wasn't stressed out at all!! I actually HAVE that money set aside in the emergency fund. And we'll only be off-track on our debt snowball for about a month while I get the money back in the account. And if it weren't for God prompting that man at Travel Man's office to give him the book and CDs, I'd have been crying about not having the money for the car to be fixed this month.

I love Dave Ramsey. I'd kiss him if I saw him.






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