Saturday, February 4, 2012

Money Matters

Show of hands from those that have debt *raises hand*

If you watch the YouTube channel you know that I made two New Year's resolutions.  Well, I'm adding a third.  I am going on a money journey guys and you're coming with me.

I joined this site yesterday called DailyWorth and it got me inspired to do something to better my financial situation.  I just had a conversation with my dad the other day talking about how I know the right things to do, but I just don't do them.  This is going to end. 

For a quick background on me, I'm a stay at home mom.  I have been since October 2010 but before that worked and did my own thing.  I now make side money on Ebay and with surveys/ focus groups.  It's not much but enough for me to buy groceries and anything for my son.  I am married, but being the type of person I am I don't like being dependant financially on anyone else. 

I figure I will follow Dave Ramsey's guide because my dad followed it along with others and it worked wonders.  With that being said the first thing to do is to save $1000.  Yes I said my plan is to get rid of debt so why wouldn't I put that $1000 towards that instead?  Well say I did that and put all my extra money towards paying off credit cards.  Then, as expected something unexpected happens like the engine in your car blowing up.  Where are you going to get the money to fix it?  Take out a loan?  Use one of the credit cards you just paid off?  Exactly....The point of saving the $1000 is so you have an emergency fund.

For me this may take a while, but I've started by opening a separate interest bearing savings account through Ally.  I send any survey checks to them and then forget about it.  For you that work, this can be done much faster since you can set to have a certain amount of your checks deposited into an account regularly.  This step is to be done as fast as possible, so the sooner the better.

While doing this step, we can go ahead and prep for the next step, which I'll talk about in another post.  You will want to get your personal financial stats otherwise know as your credit report.  You can also get your credit score.  Get that and write down all of your bills/debts starting with the smallest balance to the largest.  Save this paper!

Here are some great sites you can check out as well for advice, encouragement, and to help with our financial journey.  Comment below if you're going with me!


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