Debt Views

About eighteen months ago, my husband and I made a decision to take the advice of financial counselor Dave Ramsey and get out of debt. Although we hit a number of snags which resulted in us taking a year off (little things, like unemployment and a new baby), we were grateful to have listened to Dave in our struggles. Furthermore, now that we are back to paying off our consumer debt, we are fired up and wired up!

I started listening to Dave Ramsey in December 2005, when an online friend recommended him in answer to some financial questions I had. Like most young American couples, my husband and I were struggling with “too much month at the end of the money.” We tallied up our total debt and were shocked. We decided to sit down and get busy getting rid of it.

I’m the nerd; my husband is the free spirit. At first, while he was in agreement to get out of debt, he wasn’t as “gazelle intense” as Dave recommends. I quickly changed that. I took a dry erase marker and wrote down the balances on our credit cards on our bathroom mirror. Each time we made a payment to one, I changed the number. This provided a two-fold result: I got excited to pay the bills for a change, and he was constantly reminded of the total debt we owed. This helped tone down his spending, and I am convinced it is a big part of how he went from unexcited to gazelle intense.

The hardest part for us has been taking a year off and losing momentum. While we struggled with unemployment, things seemed to grow bleaker. However, had we not been on Dave’s plan already, I know we would have gone even deeper into debt, digging a worse hole for ourselves. I’m grateful for the encouragement from Dave to keep us on track even amidst our struggles.

We are planning to be debt free by Christmas of 2007. We will call Dave on the day before our 7th wedding anniversary (which falls on a Saturday) to scream “We’re debt free!” My kids are already primed. I hear myself yelling over and over again. The joy that I know I will feel at that moment makes all of the hard work and sacrifice worth it.

Nola Redd is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Writers. She also writes the LDS Families blog for Families.com.

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