I love Dave Ramsey, and his course, Financial Peace University, has impacted my life in so many ways, but he would definitely not approve of the way we are getting out of debt.
According to Dave's steps, we shouldn't be contributing (anything over the company match) towards our retirement, but we do. He also
The first time we got out of consumer debt, yes, there was first time, we decided to get out of debt, but that we wouldn't let it in impact our lifestyle. This came about for many reasons, but mostly because we didn't want our kids to have to suffer the consequences of our poor financial decisions. If it were up to Dave, our kids wouldn't play soccer or baseball, they wouldn't dance, and we wouldn't go on vacation. These things didn't seem fair to us. They were our mistakes, why were the kids having to pay for them?
Other things we weren't willing to give up to get out of debt included gift giving, home renovations, and really any recreational activities. Again, we aren't gazelles. I want to get out of debt so badly, but, in all honesty, not badly enough. I'm not willing to sacrifice our quality of life, even in the short term, to get out of debt faster.
We buy new clothes (the horror), we buy new cars, (but we do drive them until they D.I.E.), we take extravagant vacations, we buy gifts for family and friends, and we tackle massive home renovation projects, all while paying off our debt. The fact that we can still do all those things while making payments above and beyond the minimum and not taking on any more debt means we make more than enough money but that we have made some poor financial decisions in our past. That's what we are trying to rectify now, but without giving up anything in the short term.
We aren't gazelles.
And that's why we are still in debt.
No comments:
Post a Comment