Dave Ramsey Followers

I have read two bloggers post about Dave Ramsey just today, so I am going to hop on the band wagon and post about our experience. For those of you who don't know, Dave Ramsey is a financial guru. He has lots of followers (that sounds like a cult- but its not). All of his followers have something in common- debt. Dave is all about being responsible with your money and wiping out debt a step at a time. I first heard of him years back from a book my dad gave me. He gives this step by step process of what you should do with your money. For example, 1- save $1000 emergency fund 2- pay down credit cards 3-pay down car loans, student loans, other loans 3- not sure what is next- haven't gotten there. It's taught that your biggest tool in paying down debt and eventually investing is your income and how you use it(of course). Debt is paid down in a process called the 'debt snowball'. For example, you pay all the minimums on your debts except for 1 debt you pay all you can toward that in a month. When that debt goes away you take what you were paying for that and apply it to the next debt (plus the minimum on that debt). Anyhow, what makes this all work is BUDGETING.

Ok, so we have come up with our family 'budget'. What I have trouble with is tracking spending within the budget. Maybe I am trying to go into to much detail here (I have budgets for detailed categories such as 'paper products' referring to toilet paper and paper towells). What do you other DR people do to track your budget? Do you collect receipts? Do you use programs- pearbudget.com, quicken, etc?? And, I have an admission. I haven't been so good with couponing and lowering our grocery budget. I've been doing WW and cooking WW recipes, and people let me tell you- those are not budget friendly! I seriously need to do a better job at saving money in the food store. Anyone have any CHEAP yet HEALTHY meals? Why are healthy meals always more money?

I'm going to tell you people out there reading our blog our goals. Short term- lower the grocery budget Longer term- Pay down $15,000 in car debt by May 2009, Pay down $19,000 in student loan debt by April 2010. These are VERY lofty goals on our part, but you have to set your standards high. Thankfully, we have only have car debt for one car. Our plan is though, once we get rid of the 15k of car debt we will put some of that money that we were paying towards that to save for a new car (Z's car is a 2000, so at some point it will need a replacement). Of course, all of this is only possible with me still working. So, right now I am sucking it up, toughing it out, and working to improve our financial future by getting rid of debt.