Crushing on Dave Ramsey

If you've ever talked to me or my husband for more than an hour or so, you've probably heard our thoughts on Dave Ramsey and his 7 baby steps. You might also have heard about how we became debt free before we had our daughter, Piper.

If so, it may be confusing to hear that we are once again, attacking our "snowball" of debt to become debt free. What happened, you may ask? Well, when our daughter was born early we only had one very old, small car and with all of the back and forth we knew we'd be driving for our daughter's doctor's appointments, we made the decision to buy a second car, even though we didn't have enough money saved to pay cash for it.

Shocker, I know.

So, we went to our local credit union and took out an auto loan for a little over $5,000. We purchased a used minivan and vowed to pay it off as soon as possible.

Well, it's been a year since we bought the van, we've finally gotten ourselves situated and we're now attacking this auto loan. Our financial goals this year include:

1.  Paying off the van
2.  Paying cash for our Disney vacation
3.  Increasing our emergency fund from our current savings of $1,100 to approximately $5,000
4. Setting aside approximately $500 to use for furniture and supplies if/when we have another child
5. Opening some type of college fund for Piper, whether that be an ESA, UGMA or 529-plan. There are so many types of funds out there and I admit, it can get a little confusing!

If you have never heard of Dave Ramsey, I highly suggest you read a little about him and his thoughts on debt. I'm so grateful for all of the ideas he helped us put into place before we had our daughter; I am now confident that we've changed our family tree forever!