The first night's video was sort of an introduction to the whole class and then merged into what Dave Ramsey calls "Baby Steps." He focused on steps #1 and #3 since they are similar in that your goal is to establish an emergency fund.
Baby Step #1 is $1,000.00 in the bank. He instructed us to do it fast- have a yard sale, sell an extra car (which we don't have), list things on ebay, etc. This is the first step because when you have an emergency fund it means that you can completely focus about paying off your debt (Baby Step #2) and not worry about if an emergency is going to pop up somewhere. Now of course if you do have an emergency during Baby Step #2 where you have to use some or all of your emergency fund, you will need to replenish it.
Baby Step #3 is having 3-6 months of "living expenses" in your emergency fund. This step happens AFTER you have paid off all debt except the mortgage. I think this will be my favorite step because I will not have to worry about keeping up with any credit card payments and I can solely focus on saving!
Even thought I think this class is going to bring me out of my comfort zone. I am sticking it it. We took an older version of this course a couple of years ago (shortly after our oldest son was born). I don't want to say that we weren't committed to the class last time; but, this time it is more of a necessity in order to achieve our long term goals.
Since the first class last Wednesday, we have managed to gather about $85 to add to our emergency fund. $35 of it was from selling junk that was just sitting around my house! I would like to double that amount this week and sell $70 worth of stuff to add to our fund!
We look forward to blogging about our journey through this course and throught the completion of all 7 of the baby steps. Our family is our number one priority but imagine how we could bless others if we did not have to worry about any debt!
Here is just a little glimpse of my motivation:
I really like the sound of this. It's hard to get committed. Russell and I are going through some similar things. Debt is hard for us, because when we were both younger we dug ourselves holes. Now we are constantly trying to get out of it, but with our schedules, eating out is easier. We love to shop. So we are taking our own baby steps, I really hope you keep up with this blog because I'll surely be following =)
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