Homeowners!!!

I last wrote on this blog on Thanksgiving day! 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everybody!

I have been avoiding this blog for one major reason:

WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!

We started the house buying process back in October and finally closed on our house on December 27th, 2011. We moved in to the house in two trips and in one day!

We are enjoying it very much. It's a small 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house. It's built by my favorite builder ever; D.R. Horton! We may not have bought our home completely by Dave Ramsey's rules or suggestions but we bought instead of renting. I am very happy with where we are and how our budget looks. Overall having a wonderful new year!

~Rusti

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!!! Enjoy your day and count your blessings.

~RustiAnn

Doing the two-step

I feel like we are doing the two step with our money and credit cards.

Last time I posted on this blog I was happy and excited to say we had PAID OFF our only credit card....

Not so anymore. That very weekend I went to Kohl's with my cousin where I found a great deal on bras. Now if you're like me, a big girl with small boobies, then you'll understand. It's not easy finding a 40A or a 38B push up bra around here. I finally did find some. They  were already 40% off then the cashier offered the extra 20% off for just applying for the card so I did.

I was approved and if I put them on the card it was another 15% off. I could get these two bras for 75% off the original price. I did it. I don't know what I was thinking. Well that wasn't so bad at only $27-ish. Then the next day I picked up my son from nursery school and they announced that Thursday was picture day....you see where I'm going with this... yeah well that insured another trip to Kohl's with my brand new charge card in hand. $85 later my son had a new picture day outfit, plus two others and one thing for me...all charged. Now we have this card with a $115-ish balance on it and the payment is due on December 3rd. I am paying off the entire balance this coming Thursday and canceling the "account protection" so that it will just sit there with a $0 balance. I feel so stupid for falling into that "oh I'll just use it this one time and that'll be it' lie to myself. No more acceptance of credit card offers from anywhere!!!

~RustiAnn

Credit Card PAID OFF!!!

I am so happy to announce that we PAID OFF our only credit card today!

I sent the last payment in today for our Firestone card. 

I am elated that this thing is paid off now. Now the fun part, we have decided NOT to close the account because it has only been open for a couple months. Since we have not purchased a home yet and will probably not be doing the 100% cash plan to buy one we can not out right kill our credit score. The plan I have in mind is that whenever it is time for an oil change or other maintenance that has been BUDGETED for, we will use the credit account and immediately make  a payment to the account to cover the cost. That way it will help build our credit score since we will, more than likely, need to use our credit scores to buy a house.

Now onto to other news we are still working on our Baby Emergency Fund. It is slow going so far. 

Next paycheck should yield a pretty good chunk of money to put toward the Emergency Fund. 

~RustiAnn

Welcome and Introduction!

Welcome to our blog about our Journey to become Debt Free!

We are a young married couple with one child. We live in Texas. My husband, Steven, is the bread winner in the family. I stay home with our son, who I will call "Monkey". I also attend college part time. We have been struggling to become debt free for most of our 4 married years. We have a little less than $30,000 to pay off. Most of it is medical bills, one car, two student loans and one, yes only one, credit card. We have previously paid off 5 other credit cards, 4 of which were department store cards, JC Penny, New York & Co, Victoria's Secret, Lane Bryant, and DressBarn, the 5th card was a MasterCard that we had actually opened to use as a emergency fund, how irresponsible! We will be living on CASH only!! 

NO debit cards, NO credit cards! 

We are super excited to be starting over on this Journey to become debt free! We follow the plan set by Dave Ramsey in "The Total Money Makeover".

Baby Step 1: $1,000 in an emergency fund

Baby Step 2: Pay off all debt with the debt snowball

Baby Step 3: 3-6 months of expenses in savings(fully funded emergency fund)

Baby Step 4: Invest 15% of income for retirement

Baby Step 5: College Funding

Baby Step 6: Pay off your home early

Baby Step 7: Build wealth and give!

We are currently on Baby Step 1. We are hoping to have the $1K by the end of October.

Thank you for reading and following!

Rusti, Steven and Monkey!