An ironic wee story...

**petrolhead** · 03-20-2011, 08:59 PM

I just thought I'd share an ironic wee story of how I discovered DR in a country where nobody has heard of him or his plan, until a year or 2 ago we thought we were doing great, despite our finances being all over the place, with a car loan and a fluctuating credit card balance and no EF or retirement we had managed to put in £10k of mortgage overpayments in the same year as getting married. There was overtime aplenty at my work and plenty of 80 hour weeks were becoming the norm so I decided to splurge £560 on an iPhone 3gs, (rip-off britain, everything is waay more expensive here) a pure luxury, as my old basic nokia was still working just fine.

I then was playing with the tunein radio app and was flicking through the channels when I stopped on WFDM and heard this crazy guy talking about beater cars, being a car guy I had to listen as he was talking my language, and I like to keep a £500 beater as a second car as I sometimes need to park in places you don't want to park a nice car. I bookmarked the show and got hooked and realized I had the whole thing upside down and I had to get the wife on board and get it turned around. Well, we are getting there and the plan is great as it gives you hope and light at the end of the tunnel, but if I hadn't made a wasteful purchase of the iphone I would never have heard of financial peace and would have kept on down the wrong path and now that overtime at work has dried up the changes so far have all been beneficial, so that wee splurge was well worth it. I just need to keep remind myself that the battery deteriorating on my iphone isn't an excuse to go and buy the new model...

**Hurricane0884** · 03-20-2011, 09:11 PM

WTG! Sounds like you will be debt free in no time! I to randomly found dave ramsey what a stroke of luck for the both of us!

**OOwl** · 03-21-2011, 08:48 AM

I think you ought to write Dave and tell him that story. He'd probably read it on air.

Welcome to the "plan." Sounds like you're well on your way to debt freedom.

**Russ** · 03-21-2011, 09:25 AM

Excellent post! Welcome to Frugal Village!

**Ceashels** · 03-21-2011, 09:31 AM

The Beginning of a Success Story! Congratulations!

**cottageliving** · 03-26-2011, 03:52 PM

Wow! What a great story -- who would have thought that splurging on a Apple product would end up revolutionizing the way you look at how you live your life? And the timing could not have been better - you got on the right path BEFORE the overtime stopped! Perfect. Keep up the great work!

**mauimagic** · 03-26-2011, 03:57 PM

Mahalo for sharing Petrolhead!! Keep us updated on your journey - we are avid listeners and a great audience!!

**petrolhead** · 03-26-2011, 09:00 PM

Yep, glad we started when we did, before the overtime fell away or we would be in a tight spot now, but by starting on cleaning the mess has given me the confidence, focus and determination to decide to start a self employed part time venture alongside my day job, just done my first survey and estimate for a potential client for a security and home automation system, fingers crossed.
Been reading Guerrilla Marketing so I'll be trying some of the suggestions like referral discounts etc.

**petrolhead** · 03-27-2011, 10:40 AM

The quote was accepted and collecting a deposit tomorrow, exciting times...

**cottageliving** · 03-28-2011, 11:28 PM

That is EXCELLENT -- you made me want to check out Guerrilla Marketing -- now with your immediate success I think I will check it out!

CONGRATS on your early success!!!!

You are really off to a great start

**petrolhead** · 03-31-2011, 10:50 AM

Is it wrong to be as excited as a child at Christmas over something as simple as seeing my company logo on equipment for the first time?

Already got some more enquirys and will be doing another couple of surveys and estimates at the weekend, first jobs neighbours are expressing interest too which is good as my employer just announced today it will be laying off 5 engineers and some office staff, I'm not included, but the general atmosphere isn't too good, just getting on with it and trying not to let it demotivate me while I'm there but it feels good to have other irons on the fire.

Has anybody on here any tips for designing a basic website? I have never done anything like that before, but got my domain names registered last night.

**petrolhead** · 04-04-2011, 04:26 PM

To answer my own question I found a site, Weebly, that has a very easy to use WYSIWYG website construction utility attached, Its free to setup, they do free basic webhosting and they don't embed google ads etc in your page. If I refer you, both you and I get a months free premium upgrade too so if you fancy that follow the referral link: Weebly - Create a free website and a free blog

Is it against the rule on here to post the link to my own website?