List Maker, List Maker, Make me a List...

Are you a list maker?

I am.

My mother is a list maker.

My dad's mother is a list maker.

I come by it all kinds of naturally.

I like making lists.  I LOVE scratching things off lists.  What if I do something that isn't on my beloved list?  I add it to the list just so I can scratch it off.  Yep.  I'm THAT kind of person.

Here is my list for all things related to moving:

The point is not for you to read every line item(sorry it's a crappy picture quality).  The point is for you to see the number of things on the list.  There are several (understatement).  And I know there are several more (another understatement) things that need to be added to the monster "To Do" list prior to us moving.

For some reason, when I start to get overwhelmed about an upcoming thing, I revert back to paper.  There are millions of apps that would probably work well at managing my lists.  I can't use them.  I have to physically scratch something off with an actual real-life pen to make it feel official.  Pencils are also inadequate in my list-world, in case you were wondering.

The other day, thanks to a gracious friend watching my kids for a couple of hours, I managed to accomplish ONE item on my list:  obtaining birth certificates for my kids.  James is 2.  Reese is about to be 1.  No, I had not found it necessary to go get those precious documents yet.  They live in my house.  That was enough proof for me that they were borned.  Getting birth certificates really shouldn't have been a big deal, but for some reason I was absolutely dreading this task.  Driving downtown, finding a place to park, finding the right government building, finding the right office inside the building, filling out the right forms, having the right form of payment with me, yada yada yada.  I just plain didn't wanna do it.  Which is why I've put it off for so long.  Yes, you can request these documents through the mail or online, but the price goes from $10/copy to $30+/copy for those other methods.  The spirit of Dave Ramsey in me wouldn't let me pay ridiculous amounts more just because I was being a wuss about navigating in downtown Raleigh.  I lived in Seoul, Korea, for goodness sakes.  My parents let me and two other 13 year old girls gallivant to and from an indoor amusement park using the subway system there with no adult supervision.  If I handled that as a 13 year old, to be sure I can handle downtown RALEIGH as a 35 year old, right?!

Anyway...back to birth certificate procurement.  After leaving my friend's house and realizing I forgot my wallet and driving back home to get it and then going to the bank to get cash to pay for the oh-so-important documents and finding a place to park and getting to be "wand-ed" by the xray security guy because I had on a belt and Danskos which apparently always set off the xray machine and finally making it to the right person to fill out the paperwork...  I was with the birth-certificate-lady for about 10 minutes.  That's it.  The person beside me trying to get her 3 week old baby's birth certificate was having a time of it because his name was apparently spelled wrong on it.  The kind government worker was gently explaining how the mom needed to follow this simple 352 step process involving approximately 895 peoples' signatures to get his name corrected.  I was quite grateful my process only took 10 minutes.  After driving not-so-directly out of the downtown area back to my friend's house, I couldn't wait to scratch off "birth certificates" off of my list.  Only, after I did, I felt like just scratching the one thing off wasn't enough.  It seemed like such a complex task, I almost wrote all the steps down just so I could scratch them off.  It would've looked something like this:

At least THAT list would make me feel more accomplished!

Are you a list maker?

Paying Cash for a Car

On Monday, January 21st, 2013, Scott and I bought a car.  We paid cash for it.  This is our tale.  It begins in 2008...

As you may already know, we are huge Dave Ramsey fans.  When we got married in July of 2008, a dear friend gave us a Financial Peace University Kit as a wedding present.  It was just the right tool at just the right time to get Scott and I started off well as a married couple.  We needed to do things differently managing our money together than either of us did as single people.  We set our sights on getting out of debt and we did so in 25 months.

Side note:  When I tell people I'm a big fan of Dave Ramsey's and his "program", I get mixed reviews at best.  A whole lot of people are skeptical of how anyone can live without credit in this day and age.  But when I tell them we paid off $75,000 in debt in 25 months, that gets their attention.

I think this is another one of those times that gets people's attention.  Not a lot of people pay cash for cars these days.  When we said we were paying cash, the finance guy at the dealership we bought from on Monday looked at us like we were weird.  (I know...we ARE weird.)  He gave us a speech about how credit is important and how we can't live without it.  He continued in his speech to tell us the best ways to go about getting credit and maintaining it.  Scott and I both did our best to not preach at the guy about how wrong he was.  I did say once, "Credit is only important if you're going to borrow money, would you agree?"  Finance-dude glazed over my question.

Can you pay cash for a car?  Absolutely.  Can you pay cash for a car TOMORROW?  Probably not.  It does take time to save.  Instead of financing a car and paying a dealer or finance company interest money, we save the money for a few years and keep the interest money.  Admittedly, it is unCOOTH to talk about money.  Good thing I'm not too concerned with cooth-ness.  I want to talk numbers.  Not to brag, although I am proud of our accomplishment.  I want to talk numbers so other people reading this story can know they can do it too.  It isn't impossible.

Sorry...I'm getting ahead of myself.  2008, $75k in debt.  2010, debt free.  Even while we were getting out of debt, we put about $200/month in a car fund.  Some months we spent most of that on oil changes, car repairs, taxes, inspections, etc.  Other months we didn't spend any of it and therefore it got added to our car savings fund.  About a year after we got out of debt, we doubled our car savings to $400/month.  We were anticipating needing a new car sooner than later since I was pregnant with our second child.  My 2002 Honda Civic was a wee bit cramped for two rear-facing car seats in the back seat and two tallish adults in the front.

We started our car search last week, with a Scott-set budget of $12-15,000.  I'm the spender of the family.  If it were up to just me, I likely would've allowed myself to buy a Corvette.  Scott's gracious parents came down from Virginia and babysat our kids for two straight days while we drove around town and test drove cars and talked to (car) dealers.  "Talked to dealers" sounded sketch.  Had to throw in the word car to redeem that sentence...  My gracious parents watched the munchkins on car-buying-day.  (Did you know it takes forever at a dealership to buy a car, even if you pay cash?)  We were mostly looking at the Subaru Outback, Hyundai Sante Fe, Honda CR-V or Pilot.  Basically, some kind of wagon or a small SUV.  What we ended up buying was a ginormous SUV.

A 2006 Jeep Commander.  I had never even heard of this type of Jeep before last weekend.  It met our requirements though:  SPACE for two rear-facing car seats without the front seat passengers kissing the windshield, trunk space for multiple strollers, a price within our budget.  The dealer advertised it for $13,600.  We negotiated them down a little bit so that after taxes, tags, and fees, we paid exactly $13,600.  I don't know about you, but I've never, ever written a check that large before.  Of course I screwed it up the first time because my hand was shaking.  Due to massive amounts of concentration, and sticking my tongue out a little to the corner of my mouth (go ahead and try it!), I was able to write the check correctly on the second try.  

Badaboom, badabing, Bettyboop, WE BOUGHT A CAR!  And paid cash for it!  Holy freakin' moly.  

Our car fund is now back to zero.  We'll go back to saving $400/month, minus car maintenance, and hopefully buy Scott a replacement vehicle in about four years.  

So...what do you think?  Are you a believer yet in the Dave Ramsey system?  Or do you still think we're nuts??

ps--fun video about Dave Ramsey's idea of paying cash for cars...

Dave Ramsey

If you've spent any amount of time with me, you know I'm a HUGE FAN of Dave Ramsey.  Who is he?  Why, I'm so glad you asked!  According to wikipedia:  David L. Ramsey III (born September 3, 1960) is an American financial author, radio host, television personality, and motivational speaker.  I call him a financial guru.

How I found out about Dave:

When Scott and I got married, we knew we'd have to change how we handled our finances as individuals. Neither of us were big into keeping up with the checkbook.  We would routinely check our balances online and that was about it.  (Some of you are identifying with this methodology.)  For our wedding present, our dear friend Peter gave us a Financial Peace University kit.  It included everything we needed to get started with our "revamp the finances" project.  Thanks Peter!!  On our honeymoon, which included some lengthy plane rides, we listened to some of the cds.  We were hooked from the beginning.  Dave doesn't teach graduate level financial planning concepts.  He uses basic common sense that not too many of us like to put into practice, such as SPEND LESS THAN YOU MAKE.  Wow...there's a novel concept.

In July of 2008, Scott and I started on our path to financial peace.  Combined, we had $75,000 in debt.  Two car loans, two credit cards, and two huge student loans.  The first baby step is to save $1,000 in a starter emergency fund.  We did that.  Then on to the debt.  Baby step two is pay off all your debt except your house using the debt snowball.  Scott is a teacher.  I'm a nurse.  We make decent livings, but we're not rollin' in it.  I was sure it was going to take us 5 years to pay off all our debt.   But it didn't.  We put together a modest budget (or cash flow plan, for those of you that hate the word budget) and threw every extra dollar at our debt.  It took us two years.  Twenty-five months to be exact.  Now we are DEBT FREEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!  (I have a copy of our debt-free call to the Dave Ramsey Show, but I'm not smart enough to figure out how to upload it here. :-/)

In tiny print at the top of the picture is Scott and I's name in the queue waiting to scream 'We're Debt Free' on the Dave Ramsey Show.


It wasn't easy.

I like to take lots of trips.  We didn't take exotic trips.

I want to decorate my house.  We didn't.

Scott wants a big, flat screen tv.  We didn't buy one.

Being disciplined isn't usually "fun", but the rewards are HUGE.  What I really love about following a cash flow plan/budget is that it makes some decisions very easy.  I don't walk into the grocery store and wonder if I'm about to spend our electric bill money.  Everything has a category and a budgeted amount and I have peace of mind knowing groceries, eating out, rent and other necessities are covered.  Even none-necessities like entertainment have their own category.  We can go to a movie without spending our food money. :)  We save all year for Christmas.  I have a per-person amount that I can spend.  There's freedom in that.  Is it hard?  Yes.  I want to buy extravagant gifts for people.  But we're not there yet.  For now, those of you on my Christmas list will have to deal with your $30 gift. :)

What's the point of all this?  To me, the point of being disciplined with your money is not to get rich, although that's a very real possibility.  The point of being disciplined is to be able to help others and give, give, give.  I don't know who said this, but I liked it:  Nobody would know who the Good Samaritan was if he didn't have any money.  In other words, he wouldn't have been able to help out if he was broke.  My job as a Christ-follower is to point people to Jesus.  One of the ways I hope to do that is by financially helping people in need.  What if Christians were, on the whole, diligent with their money?  What if that led to Christians funding programs that help those in need instead of the government? What if we led by example how to love and care for others?  I don't mean to make this a political thing.  It isn't.  I just mean to say that if people we wiser with their money, there would be more available to pay rent for a single mom or fully staff an orphanage and supply the needs of those children.  It could happen...

Dave says within a marriage, there is usually one nerd and one free spirit.  Nerd = spread sheet keeper, keeper of the books.  Free spirit = dreamer, big spender. Scott is a free spirited nerd and I'm a nerdy free spirit.  He doesn't like to keep up with the check book or write out the budget each month, but he's not a big spender.  I like the spread sheets and for my check book to match the bank to the penny, but I also love to spend money. :)  Somehow we make it work.

Soooo...Scott and I are on our way.  We're on baby step 3:  fully funding our emergency fund.  Appropriate, since we have a baby on the way.  A fully funded emergency fund is supposed to have 3-6 months of expenses saved up.  Not INCOME, expenses.  To me, this is a tricky target number to come up with.  Imagine if we both lost our jobs.  What would it take to keep us afloat until we started working again?  We kinda laugh at this (we shouldn't).  If Scott the teacher AND Betty Anne the nurse can't find work anywhere, we've got bigger world problems.  In that case, should a bomb shelter and supplies be included in our emergency fund?  I digress...

One of the funny things Dave says is to "put the dog on craigslist, sell the cat on ebay".  Scott was ALL ABOUT us selling the cats.  I put my foot down.  NO WAY.  First of all, what are we going to do with $2 extra dollars that we would get from selling them?  Second of all, NO.  He said I wasn't being gazelle intense.  I said......mean things.  We're better now.

My cousin Jon works for Dave Ramsey now.  He has a blog you should check out:  Stuff Christians Like.  Jon is my hero now because he works with Dave.  I mean, he was cool before, but NOW...  I already looked for nurse job openings at the Ramsey Headquarters.  No such luck...

I know I'll have more to say in the future about Dave Ramsey, but for now....  I'll end this mini-novel.

"Live like no one else so later you can GIVE like no one else."  -Dave Ramsey

In front of the Dave Ramsey Headquarters in Tennessee!
www.daveramsey.com