The D word

...DEBT! I have been very lucky to have two parents who have supported me in every way possible. No set of words can say how appreciative I am of them! They also set up stock, mutual funds, and Roth IRA's for us. They taught us how to save money and take care of ourselves. Until recently, I didn't realize how many people know NOTHING about how to invest or save money. I never realized how many people don't understand how credit card debt can grow out of control. I was taught you use it and pay it off every month. If you can't pay it off then you better not charge it. I never even realized this was an option until college. I never looked at it as a means for extra money borrowed from someone else. I thought I just had to have it in order to build credit and if I didn't have to have one I wouldn't. This all means I did not have any debt. I said did because now that I am married I DO have debt. I knew it was coming with Nic and I braced myself. Remember that first blog and how I am slightly stubborn? I told Nic I would help him with his student loans. That made sense to me. They were something he couldn't avoid and it has helped him find a great job. The truck was a different story. That was his toy not my problem. WRONG! I recently read Dave Ramsey's "Total Money Makeover". It said to pay off all debt before investing your money. Once again, I said to myself no I won't pay for the truck. We go to Scott our financial guy. I say I read Dave Ramsey and we made an emergency fund that would support us for 6 months if we both lost our jobs or something bad happens. I put aside the max amount I can put in my ROTH this year. I am also going back to school and paying for tuition so I put that aside and here is what I'm left with after I pay Nic's student loans. Scott remembered that Nic has truck payments... uh oh here it comes. He said Stef I am trying to make you great clients for me and with that debt you won't be. Why pay the extra 2000.00 in interest when you could save that amount and just pay it now. Nic and I sat there in silence. Scott knew it was hard for me to let go. I'M A SAVER I COULDN'T GIVE IT AWAY! But I realized I needed to. We can now put the student loan payments and truck payments into the savings and not into a lenders pocket. It will take time to rebuild what I called "my down payment on a house" but we will get there and very fast because we are debt free! I'm pretty darn excited to start our marriage off debt free! Besides having a mortgage, I don't ever want debt again! If you need help with money or debt please read Dave's book! It even talks about life insurance... everyone should have life insurance! Did you know there are two different kinds of life insurance? I didn't know there was so read the book!

On a different note....
Is it sick that I love learning about biology? We are doing anatomy and physiology right now. No messing around on the first day. We were talking cells, tissues, organs, the whole system. Ribosomes and cytoplasm! I LOVE SCIENCE! I am so eager to learn about dental! Is it sick that I love school in general? I guess when it is something you really like and are interested in reading chapters is fun! Well, as you can see the first day of class was great! My peers are nice and professors are the ones that really want to see you succeed. The ones that say you can talk to me anytime about anything and really mean it. I am so glad and relieved!

Until next time....