The Breakdown of the Dave Ramsey Plan

      After  reading and listening to Dave Ramey.  I have found that it is very important to get the support of your spouse.  My husband, Ryne, didn't really know a whole lot about the Dave Ramsey Plan.  So, I put together our budget and my husband and I sat down and tweeked it so both him and I were happy.
      Let me tell you at this point, I know that I think I have have everything covered in our budget.  But, I bet I am forgetting something.  It is amazing how much money that we have going for our bills and how little we actually get t spend on ourselves for our needs and our wants.   I know that we are going to have to make sacrifices to be able to afford everything in our budget.
     So where did we start?  Well, we started with Dave's Seven Baby Steps.  Ryne and I acutally have double the recommended amount of an emergency fund, so were good to go.  The second step is to pay off all the debt with the snowball effect.
     The second step is a HUGE step.  This is actually a the step when you come to the realization of how much debt you actually are in.  This step does not include your mortgage payment.  I had to recored EVERY student loan amount, interest rate, and minimum balance.  With each individual loan, we have like 20 loans.  These have been consolidated to the point so we only paying 4 creditors.  Then we had to write down all of credit card debt information.  We currently do no have a car payment, so there is nothing to write down here.
   There are several Apps or Websites that can help you keep track of all your debt and can actually run the snowball effect for you.  You can get it set up to either pay smallest amount first or highest interest rate.  I personally like the smallest amount because though I would be saving money on interest rates,  I like the fact I woud like I am making a dent in my debt.  A website that I would recommend is the Dave Ramsey's My Total Money Makeover.
   After writing down, all of our debt, bills, and mortgage. The percentages were shocking.  One/Fourth of our monthly income goes to our debt,  One/fourth of our monthly income goes to our mortgage.  Another  fourth of our debt goes to bill and the last fourth goes toward groceries, clothes, toiletries, etc.  The thought of only having a forth to live off of is kind of suffocating. But I hope we can get to the point where it doesn't feel like we are on as tight of a leash.