catholicsphere

Live simply that others may simply live. - Ghandi

I’ve been trying to make a number of changes in my life, all at once. I know they say “Go slow” so that you don’t burn out, but I think sometimes you just have to say “enough is enough”.

As some who have read “What I’m Reading” know, I’ve been reading “The Total Money Makeover” by Dave Ramsey. And, it’s really got me motivated to get out of debt — completely.

I’ve been given a bit more motivation when I received my property tax bill and found it increased by 50% over last year. Improvements we have been making around the house after we move in a little less than 2 years ago have kept us from saving the full amount that we need. Some of those improvements have been put on credit — and its amazing how quickly it can add up.

Several times we have made efforts to eliminate our debt — particularly credit card debt — and we have done a decent job of doing so. When we first got married, we had $18,000 in shared credit card and auto loan debt that we brought together. In about 1 1/2 years we got that down to around $2,500 and managed to save $15,000 for a down payment on a house. After buying a house, we didn’t do so much do eliminate the remaining amount — especially having 2 children in the next 3 years.

A minivan, medical and dental bills, a larger house, and several home improvement and furnishing projects later were looking at nearly $15,000 in debt — not including our mortgage. However, the minivan will be paid off in August; we’ve paid off 2 other credit cards in that past 2 months. And, I just worked out a new budget and will be amortizing our debt payoffs using the “payment snowball” method.

So, why am I mentioning all this? Because this is not good. And, I know there are many people who are in similar situations or worse. Debt isn’t good — and I believe Dave when he says that there’s really no such thing as “good debt”. Debt really does keep poor people poor. If you want to get out of poverty, or you want to stop living paycheck to paycheck, then you need to stop spending, stop incurring debt and stop the habits that keep you in the situation.

We’ve been basically living paycheck to paycheck. When I looked at what our position could be if we were out of debt … I was truly amazed. In our situation, we could have an extra $1,000 free and clear each month if we didn’t have some of the debt payments that we do. It was encouraging to think that in one year we could have $12,000 in an emergency or rainy day fund, without touching the money we use for our monthly bills (electric, natural gas, water), groceries, etc.

And, I’m also thinking of the good that we could do by giving joyfully to our church, instead of sometimes begrudgingly.

Also, I’ve started seriously to work on losing weight. It’s been about 5 weeks so far, and I’ve done pretty well — putting on some muscle to aid in increasing metabolism, and also dropping about 7 pounds at the same time.

Lots of changes going on … by simplifying our lives, we will hopefully be able to simply live and help others as well. And I filed this also under “pro-life” because it certainly qualifies.