Beans and Rice, Rice and Beans!

My husband and I have been Dave Ramsey followers and fans for about 4 years now.  If you don't know who Dave Ramsey is you have got to check out his website, radio show, podcast, or books.  He give financial advice and in my humble opinion ROCKS!  When we first started out with Dave 4 years ago we had just lost our condo due to bad financial planning, my husband going back to school and only working part time, and of course the major housing drop.  Anyways we were in bad shape and lost as to how to ever pick ourselves back up from this mess we had created.  Then along came Dave into our lives.  We started on his plan and never looked back.  He has this baby step program that really works.  We had over $70,000 in debt because of two car payments, and 3 student loans, plus credit cards.  Within 1 year of following Dave and never wavering from the path, selling so much stuff we had only the essentials left, cashing out all our stupid investments we were able to pay off $14,000 of that debt.  We were amazed we swore we had changed we could see an end in sight.  We kept on going down the path but life came at us again and again.  Now today we only have our student loans left to pay off but our progress has slowed and we have lost steam.

So I started listening to Dave's radio show again and he inspired me like he always does to not give up and to get right back on the path.  The other day my husband and I talked and decided to rededicate ourselves to getting rid of the last of our debt and finally being free from the its bonds.  We created a new budget and cut out cost where ever we could.  We also are taking Dave's advise and living off of rice and beans, beans and rice.  Which are actually really good and we are starting to get very creative with.  Not to mention my 4 year old loves to eat rice and beans and is happy to eat them everyday.

Also Dave suggested that we make some kind of tracking system, because the debt we have now is large and we pay on it all the time yet it feels like it is not getting smaller and that is why we lost steam in the first place.  So I have created a thermometer like they do for elementary school kids to fill in till they reach their goal, yup that what I did and put it on our fridge door.  Now we get to watch the thermometer fill up and fill good that we are eating away at that debt little by little.  Making the rice and beans taste even more delicious knowing that they are help us reach our goal! Then one day in hopefully the nearer future we can call Dave at his radio and shout out "We're Debt FREE!"  And what a sweet day that will be.

My thermometer only goes up to $17,000 and we have more than that to pay off so I plan on just changing it out and starting with a new one when we get to that point.  Or maybe I will make a better one that goes higher.  As for now this works for us and helps keep us motivated and I think that is what is the most important in our goal of becoming debt free.