WELCOME TO 105.1 THE BIG TALKER
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- Dave Says - January 24, 2012
In your plan, you talk about Baby Step 3 as saving enough to have three to six months of expenses ...
- Wrecked my financial life by helping parents
I was a very successful twenty some year old back in the late 90's. I was working for a top 5 fortune 500 companies as a road warrior consultant in the IT field making well over $100K! I saved every penny I could save. When my parents wanted to put a retail shop together in 2004, I agreed to help. I gave them $85K cash I saved up and let them use my credit. The next thing I knew, they racked up more than $130K debt under my name in less than 2 years buying inventory. Well, I was helping my parents right? By the time I found my Mr.Right and got married and ready to purchase a house, our application for mortgage got turned down. I didn't realize that over the years when my parents had free access to my credit, they built up so much debt under my name, that my credit is no longer worthy. The lender told me that my husband had to go solo on the mortgage. But since he doesn't make enough income alone, we could not qualify for the house we wanted. Although I was still making really good money, it didn't matter. We opted for a tiny house with no garage and a complete fix upper with no insulation nor plumbing. When I had a baby, the living condition got pretty terrible. My parents were shocked too after they found out what they did to me and vowed to pay off the debt under my name as soon as possible. And they did. It took them over 5 years to pay off the credit cards under my name and restored my credit. I just bought a beautiful house with my husband a month ago. I don't regret helping my parents. But if I knew the consequences of letting someone borrow my credit, I probably would try to come up with some other ways to help them.
- Plastic Surgery thanks to Total Money Makeover
Yesterday in Atlanta my life was changed because I attended Total Money Makeover. I'm a single Dad of 3 Teenagers/Young Adults. I called a family meeting afterwards and performed Plastic Surgery, cutting all my credit cards, including the Kay Jewelers card that is "Doghouse Prevention" for my girlfriend. My Emergency Fund will have to be just a little bit larger to cover the inevitable times in the future when I'll do something stupid, and have to make a jewelry purchase in order to stay out of the doghouse. Today I put a Security Freeze on my Credit with all 3 Credit Reporting Agencies so that I'm protected against Identity Theft, and prevented from ever again making stupid impulse Credit decisions. Thanks to you and your whole team, tomorrow is my 49th Birthday and I'm taking the Baby Steps necessary to get out of debt and live the second half of my life debt free. And through the beauty of Social Networking I have been spreading the word to all of my Friends and Family on Facebook. I want everyone I know to learn how to live debt free.
- Murphy's out of the house!!!
Dear Dave, GOD IS GOOD! This is our “debt free scream” and I have to share how good GOD is! 31 months ago we got serious about your program. We had a HELOC and bought a boat (we’re serious fishing people) we owed quite a bit on. In 30 months, with lots of sweat-equity & after $53,216.64, we became debt-free (except for the house) on Christmas day! During this & while we had NO $, the car broke 4 times, then had a major accident totaling it out & emergently having to buy a new car, the house A/C went out, the house water heater died, and we really felt “Murphy” had moved into our basement. This week I received our first paycheck that goes 100% into savings! Yesterday the (new-to-us / used) car broke on the way to work - estimated $800 was repaired for only $368! We then came home from work to a freezing cold house - furnace died. Thought we needed a whole new furnace, but repair guy fixed it for a mere $300! WE HAVE THE SAVINGS TO COVER BOTH OF THESE!!!!! THANK YOU!!!! AND THANK GOD!!! Grateful & debt free in Grand Rapids, MI, Chris & Amy
- We are attacking our $703,000 debt witha plan
I always thought we are very responsible people since we have no credit card debt, no student loans, no car payments and no equity line of credit. The only debt is our mortgages from three properties, of which two of them are rentals. We never really considered them as "debt", until I learned about a guy named "Dave Ramsey". I took a hard look at these so called "good debt". The reality is, we have a whopping $703K debt and these mortgages keep us away from our child and we HAVE to work hard on our jobs to juggle all three payments. Just for the fun of it, I sat down and used Dave's debt snow ball tool available right here on his site. I figured I can probably set aside $1500 a month to throw at the mortgage payment and started plugging the numbers away...The result is astonishing!! Our smallest mortgage is $86K, by paying extra $1500 a month starting Jan 2013 (I need a year to build up our emergency fund), the mortgage will be paid off by 2016. Then roll the rental income and the $1500 extra payment into my next rental, which has $200K outstanding balance now, it will be paid off in 2018 (I have a 10 year loan on it). Then, here is the best part, roll over all my rental income plus the original $1500 extra payment into my current residence, which has $417K mortgage balance, the house will be paid off in 2023!!! Are you serious? It would have taken 30 years or more if we did nothing extra. Now all I have to do is to put aside $1500 a month and we can be debt free for real in 11 years? When I showed the graph to my husband, who is a CPA, he is immediately on board with the idea. We made a budget plan and found the places to cut that $1500. It's so motivating so it's really not that hard to cut other expenses in exchange of this GREAT FREEDOM. The hardest part is to be aware of the issue and lay out the plan to do it. The rest of it is simply following the plan. We are only on our 1st month here and I just moved our first $1500 aside, but I am so anticipating this whole process. Every month goes by, we are one step closer to total financial freedom!
- Never Co-sign Means NEVER ! ! !
In August of 2008, I co-signed for a pickup with my younger brother so he could lower his car payment. I felt uneasy about it at the time, but with the help of some pressure and guilt, I did it. My brother made his first four payments on time, no problem; however, he was late on EVERY payment since then and often missing payments for months at a time. We did a workout loan in December of 2010 in order to lower the payment to something he could afford, which extended the life of the loan another 84 months. He missed the December payment, the January payment, the February payment... you get the idea. By November of 2011 he had made a total of maybe three payments (one every few months). After three years my relationship with my brother, and consequently the rest of my family, is almost non-existent. My parents support him and tell me I need to be more compassionate; I was told not to worry about the truck anymore because he had it taken care of. In November of 2011, I received a repossession call. I scrambled to buy more time so I could try and figure things out. My brother threatened to let it get repossessed if I didn’t help him out by paying for the truck. I told him I would only pay for the truck if I has possession of it- he dropped it off at my place the next day as a “sacrifice” for the restoration of our relationship- I had to pay $2500 to bring it current just to avoid repossession… Long story short, he paid less than $4000 on the truck over three and a half years. The truck Blue Books for $17,000 but is not in the best shape. It has been posted online and sitting by the mall for three months now and I have lowered the price to about $15,000 praying that someone will buy it (your prayers for the same would be much appreciated). Oh, and I still owe $23,000; I will be using my savings to pay off the loan once I sell the truck. PLEASE learn from my stupid tax. When someone asks you to co-sign for them, do yourself a favor and RUUUUUUN!!!
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