This year is flying by, sheesh! I am nearly straight with my expenses and with saving, luckily I don't have to do all the gift buying that most others have to do during the Winter solstice. I started reading that Dave Ramsey book about personal saving, debt reduction and building wealth. So far it is pretty interesting stuff. Like off the top Ramsey suggests that we immediately implement the seven baby steps…
1. Save $1,000 for emergencies. This is like a basic fund that just sits there and waits for trouble.
2. Pay off all credit debt with the snowball effect. You pay off the smallest debt first. Once that small one is done you throw all of that amount at that the next debt and so on until all of your credit card debt is gone.
3. Save 3-6 months of expenses in savings. Just in case you lose your job and need to stay afloat until the next opportunity comes along…I know some people who did this and are not quite as bad off as they would have been had they not had the initial life raft. One of them is finally employed after of 18 months of joblessness and the other one is STILL looking for employment. They worked at the same place unfortunately and both got hit during the big business layoffs.
4. Invest 15% of household income into Roth IRAs and pre-tax retirement products..
5. Start dumping cash into the college fund for the kiddos. Now this one is a GOOOOOOD one, especially since I am still and always will be paying on student loans from the 2 masters degrees I had to finance on my own…
6. Pay off the home early. Now I don’t own a home but I figure I could just dump cash into paying off my vehicle since I just recently got a new one…
7. Build wealth and give. This is the step I am most intrigued about! I want to really start setting up a comfortable life for my twilight years and for that I need some disposable income for investing and helping others.
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