Money Makeover- Chapter 3

Financial Thursday- Every Thursday I'll post my financial challenge book group comments for The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey.

Do you have a financial guru you look up to? Who is it and why?

I don't have a financial guru per say. My mother did an excellent job instilling the dangers and advantages of credit cards to me as a college student which I will be forever grateful for. With the exception of my honeymoon, I have always been able to pay off my credit card bills in full each month.

I've also recently enjoyed reading The Simple Dollar blog. It has a lot of great advice for living frugally and some pretty good financial advice too.

What was your financial high and low for the week?

Two highs for the week:

1. DH and I have officially paid off our honeymoon debt which means no more credit card debit. Yippee!
2. DH agreed to consolidate our cable services. We will continue to get internet service and basic channels (ABC, NBC, CBS, ect.) but have removed our DVR, HD channels, and expanded cable services. This will save us a whooping $73 a month. Yeehaw!

The low for the week is that we still have a crap load of debit in student loans, car loans, and a mortgage. I think Dave Ramsey wrote chapter 3 just for me and DH!

Do you have any new thoughts about money that you've gleaned from Chapter 3? If yes, what is it?

What really hit home for me in chapter 3 was the myth that loans are a way of life.

When I went to college and then graduate school, everyone told me not to worry about the student loans, that everyone had them, and it was the only way to do it. If I could do it over again, I wouldn't have gone to grad school right after college. I think it would have been smarter to start working and take classes part time to reduce the amount of loans I took out. But of course if I hadn't gone to grad school I wouldn't have met DH.

And while I have always known that pay day loans and rent to own deals were a scam and have never fallen victim to them, the second part of the chapter 3 on car loans really hit home. My first car I bought used for $5000. It was a great car and cheap enough that I didn't need a loan to cover it but everyone told me how lucky I was that it didn't need any work and that people who buy cars with that many miles on it and for that cheap always end up spending twice as much money on repairs yada yada yada. I was effectively brainwashed and when I finally need to replace my car I end up getting a much less used car that required a hefty loan to cover the price tag.

And of course when DH got his new job he thought he deserved a brand new truck so every month we pay $800 worth of car payments! What were we thinking?!?! I'm glad Ramsey set me straight; I will definitely be saving up before purchasing another car again (which hopefully will be a long, long time from now).

After reading chapter 3, I am convinced that DH and I need to do a much better job of planning ahead and saving accordingly. We are definitely the red faced 2 year old in the store screaming, "I want it and I want it now". Ramsey called us out and now we are going to do things differently.