Two Days before “Lampo Or Bust”

By this time on Friday 6/1 we will have done our debt free scream. I call it scream but the coordinators at Financial Peace Plaza have been calling it “yell” in the logistics email to me. I wonder if that’s a regional thing. Or is “yell” more polite than scream? Or less scary to those not in the know?

Anyhoo, we’ve been in communication with Lara Johnson and her assistant on the logistics. We’ll be on the air as Troy & Lucy 2-3 PM Central Standard Time (CST). So for folks in Atlanta, that’s the 2nd hour of the show so it will probably be 11 PM – 12 Midnight? Well listen to the whole thing just to be sure

I’ve been “rehearsing” the conversation with Dave for a while now. Either I will do the below “script” because I’ve run through it in my head a bazillion times or I will flub it and sound like a bonehead in front of 6 million people. No pressure.

PREDICTION OF DEBT FREE YELL CONVERSATION

Dave: Starting this hour we have live in the lobby of Financial Peace Plaza we have Troy & Lucy from Atlanta! What brings you here guys?

Me: We drove up from Atlanta to do our Debt Free Scream!

Dave: That’s awesome! How much did you pay off?

Me: 62 thousand…debt free except for the house…

Dave: And how long did that take?

Me: 23 months

Dave: Making what kind of income?

Me: A little over 100k

Dave: Very well done. What kind of debt was it?

Me: 40 thousand was IRS and the rest was medical bills and credit card debt. Before we knew about you we did something stupid and cashed out a large portion of our 401k to refinance our house because our payment was 50% of our take home pay.It was a really stupid move but we learned our lesson.

Dave: I’ll say! So what was the hardest thing about paying off 62 thousand in 23 months?

…at this point I’ll hand the conversation over to Lucy. I don’t know what she’ll say.

I haven’t predicted the rest of call other than WEEEEEEREEEEEEEEDEEEEEEEBTFREEEEEEEE ringing your ears!

Winding Down

This coming Thursday will be our last week coordinating about 35 or so people in the Financial Peace University (FPU) class at our church. It’s been a wonderful time and I’ve learned a lot from revisiting the lessons and hearing people’s stories.

I found that by sharing our story people realize “hey weren’t not alone in this”. In fact, I was really surprised by how much people were inspired by our dumb mistakes. Hopefully I won’t continue to inspire them in that way.

About halfway into the class we realized that we needed some additional voices in the mix. So we got people in the class to share their success stories. Also we got some Endorsed Local Providers (ELPs) from Investing and Real Estate to attend. Finally, we got some FPU graduates to share their successes and provide some hope to others. That variety really helped energize the group.

My wife and I are really blessed to be able to work with such a great group of people and be supported by our church. I plan on presenting the new curriculum in 2013!

WE ARE DEBT FREE!

Yesterday we paid off the credit card which was our last debt (except for the mortgage). That completes Baby Step 2 in the Dave Ramsey 7 Baby Steps. We filled out the form to set up a “Debt Free” scream on the Dave Ramsey Radio Show.

It’s been a long two years but it’s been worth it.

No A/C in the car for 2 years…worth it

Broken dishwasher for 4 years…worth it

Spending time doing a budget every two weeks…worth it

Saying “no” when you didn’t want to…worth it

Sacrificing the near term for the long term…totally worth it

Also this week we started teaching Financial Peace University at our church. What a great way to reinforce the teaching and reminding ourselves to stay on track.

Receipt Revisit

I recently came across a gaggle of receipts from 2000-2001.  My wife and I pawed through them like archeologists to discern “who was this family…and what on earth did they do with their money?” For some reason, I saved all of the receipts but DIDN’T DO A BUDGET. I’m bewildered why I would save receipts “after the fact” without planning on where to spend the money on the front end.

For some background, in 2000-2001 we lived in Andover, MA, which is a beautiful classic New England town. I was working as an engineer at Philips Medical Systems and had a 5 minute commute to work (and sometimes rode my bike to work before it was cool). Although the house was tiny (800 sq ft) we invested in Andover since it was a desirable town and home values went up. It was a great starter home. We had one child at the time so that configuration worked.

Looking at the receipts, we recalled how we lived back then:

• We shopped local before it was hip. We felt the allegiance to the local shoe stores, health food stores, etc. But we obviously weren’t price-conscience to go along with that.
• We definitely had “it’s our first child and we’re going to give him the best we can” syndrome. It’s common with first time parents and there’s nothing inherently wrong with it. But now I realize that a 2 year old does not know if the book was from a yard sale or the independent bookstore downtown. We’ve proven that with our 3rd child. She’s content and we probably have spent 1/20 on her compared to our first.
• We didn’t think about prioritizing things. I saw a receipt for yard word (mulch delivery). I know it’s important to keep your yard looking nice but that should be a low priority if you have debt and other things to clean up first.
• We had an interest-only equity loan to fix up some things on the house. We paid over $400 a month on it for an interest-only loan. Can you say “stoopid”? Yipes. We saved that statement to remind us how we acted back then.

But if you saw us back then you’d think that we were completely normal. We lived in a nice albeit small house in a quaint New England town. He’s an engineer and she stays at home with their adorable toddler. And look they have wooden toys and eat organic food from the health food store! They must be all set…

Financial Peace University comes to St. Thomas More in Decatur, GA

This weekend I manned the Narthex at our church, St. Thomas More in Decatur, GA to create interest in Financial Peace University (FPU) class coming on 2/23.

I was overwhelmed with the interest. Over 30 names were collected and even if less than half of those end up attending, it will be a full class for sure. I’m grateful that there’s been a lot of interest in the program. Sometimes you get so isolated just working your own plan and listening to the Dave Ramsey show podcast. I want to make this class a lot of fun and engaging for people!

I’ve had an OUTPOURING of interest and support and I feel really blessed for that!

2012 Goals

Happy New Year!

My guess is that saying “Happy New Year” will become blase next week so I’m going to squeeze it while it’s socially acceptable.

I’m glad that 2011 is gone. While it was great that we paid off a lot of debt, it was year of sacrifice to make that happen. I started the blog in May 2011 and we were in the thick of it at that time. Murphy made a few visits with broken A/C in the car, dental work, broken refrigerator, etc. But now I see Baby Step 3 in the horizon and I’m excited about the future.

I’m now a believer in the powerful of purposeful written down goals and as such I’ve created my 2012 goals:

• Be debt free but the house by end of Feb 2012 (Baby Step 2)
• Have at least $10k in the emergency fund by 12/31/2012 (Baby Step 3)

In the spirit of transparency, here are my additional personal goals

• Exercise 3x a week for at least 30 minutes at a time during 2012
• Weigh 170 lbs by 6/1/2012
• Put up insulation and plywood in basement by 12/31/201
• Finish walkway by 12/31/2012
• Be hired into a new position by 12/31/2012

What are your 2012 goals? I hope that you have a wonderful 2012 and continue to check in with blog posts during the year.

Quick Update

I haven’t posted in a while. I’ve violated my original goal of a post a week. I won’t list the excuses because who wants to hear that garble!

The latest news is that we’ve paid off 90% of our debt! The guitar I sold netted $3,500 which was applied to the snowball “toot sweet”. We have$6.4k left on credit card debt. Boy does THAT feel good!

Our monthly snowball amount is $800 so that would be 8+ months of continued payments but my annual bonus is delivered in February and that will polish off the remaining portion like the Cookie Monster attending Thanksgiving Dinner at the Keebler Elves’ House. I dunno…that’s what came to mind.

Here’s some current thoughts around our Total Money Makeover Journey.

• This is still basic work…doing the budget, tracking the spending, adjusting the budget when life happens. But it’s completely worth it!
• This is about changing behavior. And once we are debt free we won’t go back to the previous behavior. That’s why this program works.
• I’m thankful that I have a good paying job to make this happen.
• We are truly blessed.

The last 16%

We’ve paid off 84% of our debt (except for the house). Now we’re slogging away at the last 16%. Feels like we’ve been “in the final mile” for a while now. Here’s why it feels like it’s taking forever to finish

• We haven’t had any large surplus / windfalls to accelerate the debt snowball, like when I sold a lot of music equipment in the span of a few months
• We’ve had a few “Murphy” visits in the form of car repairs that have chewed up the emergency fund several times

Our goal is to be debt free by the end of February 2012. And that feels like it’s just around the corner! But it’s like driving on the flat plains and there are mountains in view…after 6 hours of driving you’d think that the mountains would be in front of your grill but they are still quite a distance away.

This is what I’ve heard Dave Ramsey describe as the 18th mile in a marathon. So we have to just keep plugging away. This is probably the least glamorous part of the total money makeover but the most important. So for everyone in the 18th mile…just keep running!

Brief Update

Our goal is to be debt free by the end of February 2012.

To date we’ve paid off:

IRS: $40,000

Medical: $6,000

Credit Card: $6,000

What’s left: $10,500 left on the credit card. It will be great to see that move to 4 digits next month with the debt snowball.

This is the 18th mile in the marathon (not that I’ve ever run a marathon). Feels slow as molasses but have to keep going!