Living within your means

Well we have made it through our second full month of Dave Ramsey and I must say it really is not too bad. I saw this video from the church pop up on my facebook this month and I thought "this is so true."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fC7pPAyrSSg

When I think back on how foolish with money Justin and I were when we first got married I just can't imagine it now! I am like "WHAT WERE WE THINKING?!?!?!?" Ahhh! I mean we just bought whatever we wanted back then! Justin likes to blame the house on me. He wanted to just live in an apartment, but I thought "That is just throwing money away!" How was I supposed to know the whole economy was going to come crashing down and now we would be stuck and couldn't sell. oh well. We were very stupid though. I had about $20,000 or so saved up when we got married. Where is that now? Who knows! It turned into debt! And did we need it all? NOOOO! But I thought we did at the time. We ate out all the time and just did whatever we wanted. Now I can't even fathom it! I NEVER buy anything full price unless we really NEED it. Most everything we buy now is always searched for at yard sales or Craigslist first. I have actually NEVER even bought Kaitlyn a new outfit! Everything she has was either donated to us, bought from yard sales, or my mom does like to buy her a few things every so often. But I don't! I even buy her baby food on Craigslist! haha. Don't worry it is within date and unopened :)

The gist of the Dave Ramsey program is we pay cash for whatever we can, that is not drafted out of our account. And you set a budget. Like for instance we only allow $140 for groceries. And that includes diapers, toiletries, cleaning supplies...everything. So then we allow $60 for restaurants/to-go foods etc. The premise of Dave Ramsey is that if I run out of our $140 grocery budget, I have to take it out of somewhere else...like our restaurant budget. It NEVER goes back on credit. It really helps to pay with cash too b/c you really are physically seeing exactly where your money goes! There is a lot more to it than that, but you get the picture. So far we are doing pretty well. Still a long ways to go, but still hoping to be able to live off one income this year! If anyone is ever interested in the program just ask us about it! We definitely recommend it!