For the first eight years of our marriage, my husband and I always had separate accounts. Marco had a portion of the bills to pay and I had a portion of the bills to pay. Until this last fall, I thought it was pretty cool because whatever was leftover was all mine to spend any way that I wanted to. And every month I did just that, I spent all my leftover cash on stuff and at times I spent my money on things I didn’t even need or really want.

Usually I went overboard with my spending, causing me to use a credit card at a 9% or higher rate.  Even though I was always pretty good at paying my credit card all the way down as soon as possible; I found that because I work off of commissions (no guaranteed of a paycheck every month,) at times would have a very high balance. It seemed to be a vicious cycle. Our saving grace was the fact that Marco was a firefighter and got paid every two weeks; although, at times even that couldn’t help. He ended up getting a second job and I decided that things needed to change.

I didn’t feel it was fair that he was paying for my/our little mistakes.  So in September of 2011, I talked to him about joining our accounts and figuring out a way to build a future instead of just making it through. But we couldn’t agree that it was the best decision or how it would be work. It was an interesting coincidence that about the same time our church announced that they were going to hold a Dave Ramsey class called “Financial Peace University.” We did the research on the author and his program and felt there was something we could learn from this guy.

Once we discussed all the issues, Marco ordered the material for $99.00 online which allows us to go to any refresher class around the world for FREE.  The material included Dave Ramsey’s Book, Audio CD’s, and a workbook to follow while taking the class.  We were hopeful but cautious about this class but felt anything is better than what we were doing.

We started the class the second week of September and by the beginning of October we had developed a BUDGET and set aside a $1000.00 emergency fund….YIKES right?  So putting together a budget wasn’t too bad and it catapulted us to be able to fund our emergency fund. With the budget we both got what we needed and realized we had more money than we thought. The budget was awesome because we determined where we spent the money instead of wondering where it all went.

If you haven’t done a budget before, it’s really not that difficult. Dave Ramsey’s program will give you the tools to start off, or you can go to a program such as Excel and search for a budget template to get you started. My suggestion is to look at several and pick the one that suits you best.  I did mine on a sheet of paper first. I wrote down all of our bills (mortgage, car, HD’s, electricity, water, trash, etc.) and totaled them up, then I wrote down all the items that were needed every month just to survive (food, gas, cell phones, clothes etc) and then whatever was left we placed into our emergency fund.


Once the emergency fund was completely funded we started working on our Debt Snowball. A Debt Snowball allows you to pay off one major bill at a time while paying the minimum balance on the others. Keep in mind you are to NO LONGER USE CREDIT CARDS… Developing a budget and working on the debt snowball really is an awesome way to live comfortably and pay down debt fast.  We were told in the class that the debt snowball (depending on how much debt you have) usually takes anywhere between 12-24 months to complete.

Marco and I are still working on paying down our debt. The Harley Davidson’s have been our biggest hurdle.  I am very happy with how far we have come. In 5 months we have funded our emergency fund ($1000.00), paid off $4,000 towards bills, and have saved up 3 months of income from my commission checks. That $8600.00 that we never knew we had. I smell victory soon.

Dave Ramsey’s Steps to Success are:

1)    Create an emergency fund of no less than 500.00 but best if 1000.00. (FOR EMERGENCIES ONLY)
-    Car breaks down
-    Medical Bill
-    House repair
2)    Debt Snowball:  (MUST STOP USING YOUR CREDIT CARDS) Placing very thing extra that you have at the end of the month towards your largest credit card balance first. Pay minimums on all other cards. Once you pay off one card you move to the next. There are a ton of great suggestions on how to talk with the credit card companies to assist you if you do not have extra to pay off at the end of the month.
3)    3-6 month of expenses in savings
4)    Invest 15% of household income in a ROTH IRA and pre tax retirement.
5)    Create and fund a Collage fund for your kids
6)    Pay off Home
7)    My Favorite is BUILD WEALTH AND GIVE.

He also suggests that you should always continue to invest in mutual funds and real estate.

When working toward financial peace and a life of security dedication is key.

As Marco and I continue on building Financial Peace and a better future I will tell you all about it. If you have taken his class then I would love to hear your story.