I have to give my good (IRL) friend Brad full props for bring this to my attention (and he's got a great post on his blog about it). We both drive by the same billboard everyday. It said "Act Your Wage." It was an advertisement for Dave Ramsey's radio show. I'd seen it everyday for almost a month and I'd even thought about it more than the 2.5 seconds I usually spend on billboards as I drive by them. What does that mean "Act your wage"? But I never got far enough into that thought to really investigate. Well Brad did. And I'm really glad he did.
What would it mean to have no debt? I mean really no debt. No mortgage? No car loans? No credit card loans? Holy crap what would we do with all that money??? Now we don't have tons of debt but we have a moderate amount. We do have a mortgage but I made sure early on that we were buying a house that we could really pay off and one that we could pay off before our kids had kids if we choose to stay here that long. We have unfortunately had to buy new cars in the last two years so we do have two car loans. Although I am very proud of how we bought Chris's car, we didn't get suckered into more car than we could afford nor did we get suckered into anything more than a 36 month loan. My car - not so much but that's a story for another day. One student loan that will be paid off in the next 6 months and one credit card that will be paid before the year is over.
So there's another tangent...back to Dave Ramsey. Brad came over one day really hyped up about Ramsey's radio show and some video's he saw on You-Tube. It took a few days but I got around to watching them. Well holy crap. There a LOT of common sense to what this guy says and a new perspective on money that is refreshing and realistic. One that I wish I had been smacked up side the head with a long time ago. So it's now my goal for us to be debt free. Chris and I had been working toward it for a while but now it seems even more important.
I highly recommend checking out the You-Tube videos. He's entertaining. He's realistic. He's freaking smart. Imagine what life would be like without a mortgage payment. Holy crap.
Intro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWEUCZymGmY&feature=related
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVhVNq7-Og0
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JSFI7FnlSU
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMLXQoXylLY
Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyrqaVNUdqs
Part 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvQXLA9lRyE
Part 7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbgSTWpUHzA
Part 8: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sHed0UGptc
Part 9: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb9iEnMeIXs