I had never heard of Dave Ramsey before finding this site, so this last week I finally decided to check out his website to see what you all were talking about. It was great! I'm going to go to the library next week and see if I can get a copy of his book. But for now I printed off his baby steps and taped them to the fridge. Dh and I had a talk about the budget and he's on board too.
Today I paid some bills and put $50 into a separate acct for our emergency fund. Not alot, but up til now we only had a cc to use if something came up.
The cc is paid off and in a ziploc baggy of water in the freezer.
We hope to have $1000 in the ef by the end of september.

Sounds like you're off to a great start. I also am following the Dave Ramsey plan and am on Baby Step 2. I just paid off my first debt a few days ago and It felt so good!! Glad to have a fellow traveler aboard. :grnwave:

Another baby stepper. :) The book is very entertaining and chock full of info. If you ever get the chance, I'd highly recommend catching one of his live events. I saw him last January and it was SO inspiring!! 5 hours long and it flew by, he's an excellent entertainer!

:clap: To you all :thumb:

Congratulations!

I'm a Dave Ramsey fan also & worked his Live Event in May. Fun & worth every effort put into it. My official start date on the plan was when I worked the Live Event. My accomplishments so far:

1. bEF (baby emergency fund) of $1000 saved.
2. Finally on Baby step 2 after catching up on all bills, including all CCs.
3. Getting ready to start attacking this debt with a vengeance.

I'm working the plan too.
Not at the $1000 EF yet but will be there by the end of the month, hope to have most of the debt tackled by the end of the month too. Hubby has a HUGE bonus cheque coming. After the "regular" debt its on to the farm loans.....those are another beast altogether! I have a cassette tape of Dave that I put in the van when I'm off to the city or somewhere that takes over an hour. It gives me a good kick in the butt BEFORE I head to the stores. Check out some of his stuff on ebay, be careful though, I find some of it is going pretty high.

Another Ramsey fan here! We're loosely following his steps as we are saving for our move in April, but I think it's a solid, sound plan.

Like Selu, we also are loosely following Dave Ramsey's plan. To me it's just good basic common sense. It's great that you've just put $50 in your EF. Believe me, it all adds up. Good luck, Danni!


--Michelle

I guess I should have said that I'm following the plan loosely myself. I am kinda modifying it to suit me. 8-)

:fdance: :applause: Hey there! I have been following Dave's plan for 7 months-We are on Baby step 2 as well....Our mojo for the plan started because I wanted to start TTC our 1st and then to be a stay at home mom-a thing that would be really really hard if we were on one income, then add extra insurance for 1 child.:heartsm:

Today a friend paid me $20 that she borrowed a few months ago, and I found a $5 and some loose change on the ground when we went for a walk. Tommorrow I am going to deposit them so my ef will be at $76.50.

Today I went to the bank to deposit that found money from yesterday, and my mom wanted me to get some money orders for her(they are free on my acct). While I was in the bank I asked them about acct plans. A few years ago we upgraded to a premium acct because we kept going over our transaction limit, the fees are $25/mth. They just started a new plan with unlimited transactions for $13.95/mth. So I switched I will be saving $11.05/mth. That's $132.60/year.
After I finished at the bank I met my mom at KFC, she bought me and the kids lunch and paid me the money she borrowed last month!!!

MY EF IS NOW $144.35!!!!! IT HASN'T EVEN BEEN A WEEK

Good things just seem to happen to those doing smart things. :) Enjoy!

Just wanted to say thanks for all the support. You guys are great and I'm so glad I found you.

I listed some more things for sale on the local buy and sell site, so now I'll just keep my fingers crossed.

I started using the envelope system this month and so far I haven't gone over in any of the categories, even though I cut them back quite a bit. Usually groceries were around $400/mth, I put $200 in an envelope and have only spent $150. I didn't think I could do it but it is almost the end of the month and I still have $50.

Hi Danni~ We have used alot of DR's plan the last few years. We are on step 3.
Wow! I see your mortgage is very low too! Great! Best of luck! Looks like your off to a great start!

CTB came in today and I forgot it is July and the amt went up by $90!! Woohoo!! I only budgeted for the original amt so the $90 just went to my ef.
We now have $232.75in our ef!!!

I sold some stuff yesterday($85) and returned our pop bottles($20). I'm heading to the bank to make the deposit, our ef will then be 337.75.

danni, you're in canada...so if you have any kids under 6 look for that new benefit 100 per kids per month under 6, the cheque should be coming soon (around the 20th) and the first month is a cheque..count yourself lucky on the 90 bucks, everyone i spoke too their ctb has gone DOWN....
if you already get ctb you are automatically enroled in harpers new benefit
just remember Harpers new 100$ per kids...is taxable at the end of the year...

danni, you're in canada...so if you have any kids under 6 look for that new benefit 100 per kids per month under 6, the cheque should be coming soon (around the 20th) and the first month is a cheque..count yourself lucky on the 90 bucks, everyone i spoke too their ctb has gone DOWN....
if you already get ctb you are automatically enroled in harpers new benefit
just remember Harpers new 100$ per kids...is taxable at the end of the year...

I recieved this cheque yesterday, I only have 1 that qualifies, the rest are too old. So, $100 just went into my ef. YEA!!!!

Amazing what you can acheive when you set your mind to it. The surprosing thing is how you might have spent that money had you not found Dave Ramsey and followed his program. Most likely the money would disappear and you wouldn't even know where it went. That was how it was for me until I read his book and started up the ING accounts. Now we are looking at over $5000 in the savings accounts and it's only been a few months. Congratulations....you're doing really well!

Just got my $100 too!!!!!! I filled out the paper to get it direct deposited into my EF account. Out of sight out of mind. My sister-in-law has all four kids under 6 so she gets $400 a month!!!! LUCKY but boy does she have her hands full. I can't believe I'm almost done with the baby EF step......it feels like its taking forever.

Just got my $100 too!!!!!! I filled out the paper to get it direct deposited into my EF account. Out of sight out of mind. My sister-in-law has all four kids under 6 so she gets $400 a month!!!! LUCKY but boy does she have her hands full. I can't believe I'm almost done with the baby EF step......it feels like its taking forever.

WOW!!!! 4 under the age of 6. I have 5 but only one is under 6.
I set mine up for direct deposit too, if it goes directly to the bank I don't think about it is much which makes me less likely to convince myself to spend it.

Dh and me set a goal of having our baby ef in place by the end of September, but things were going so well me figured we would have it at the end of August instead. Yesterday I went online to pay bills(dh's payday) and there was an extra $600 in my acct. I called a friend to find out what it might be and she said the working family tax credit came out this week. I completely forgot we qualified for this. The money went into our ef which is now $1000!!!!
We are now moving to baby step 2, 2 MONTHS AHEAD OF SCHEDULE!!!!!

We worked out a schedule for babystep 2, here it is:
loan #1 pd off by Dec/06
loan #2 pd off by May/07
loan #3 pd off by Dec/07
loan #4 pd off by Feb/08
loan #5 pd off by Apr/08
loan #6 pd off by Dec/08

When I did up the budget I didn't include income tax refunds or gst credits, so we are hoping we can pay them off earlier.

I sent an extra $340 to loan #1 today.

Danni you are doing great!!!

Thanks rodmick!
I recieved a child support cheque today so I sent it out too. That's an extra $284.60. I get so excited from paying bills my dh and friends think I'm weird.

Last week I sent a $600 payment to loan #1. We wanted it paid off by the end of Dec this year but we now owe less that $1000 on it. It looks like we'll have it payed off early. YAY!!!!!!

Danni you are so inspiring! You've accomplished so much since July. Amazing! :)

:clap: Loan #1 is now paid off!!!!!! That's 2 mths ahead of schedule!! I'm so excited, we still have 2 cheques coming this month, plus any child support, and I can start on the next bill. This loan payment was $300/mth, the next bill on the list is going down!!!!

That's awesome! Good for you!

Congratulations, Danni. You are doing great!!

I just started to read the tmm and I think that this is something that we can do. However I have a question I thought that I saw on here a website that has the debt snowball on it. Someone turned it into and excel form and I was wondering if any of you knew of this website. I would like to do it and then show it to my hubby and I think that would give him the push to want to do the tmm plan.

Stoneking78:
The website I use is what's the cost.com.
It can be saved as an Excel file by copying or you can register, and save your snowball.

I had all my bills planned out and I have been paying off them early. We have a $1000 emergency fund in place.

This morning dd had dental surgery, it is going to cost $3600 and our insurance will only cover $1200. I gave them a $500 deposit and we can make payments on the rest. But it is still frustrating to have more bills to pay.

Dd had her checkup today and I found out the surgery only cost $3157 and the insurance covered $1490. So we only owe $1667, minus the $500 I already pay we owe $1167. They agreed to take payments on the rest without charging us interest. What a relief!!

I paid another $250 towards debt today. I can't wait to be debt free, and this little journal of mine is definitely helping to keep me on track.