Peace Out!

Prepare yourselves to hear about Dave Ramsey every now and again. Since starting this TMMO in January it is almost all I think about when I get a spare moment. I’m always jotting down new notes and ideas, checking our online finances, figuring out how to save more, spend less, and get out of debt faster!

I apologize if you get tired of hearing about it – but it’s just the way it is. Last month I figured out a way to lower our cable bill by $7 and our phone bill by $37. It was the end of the month so we won’t see the impact until April but it all counts. Every little penny counts! I get so excited as I play around with our debt snowball and see it whittling down, I’m always doing scenarios. For example, if we can figure out a way to put $40 more toward our debt snowball per month – we’d be totally debt free I belive 10 months sooner – okay, done. My snowflake goal for March is $200 – I’m at $162 now. I even have a goal sheet on the refrigerator and got to add $50 to the tally today because I sold some of our DVDs that  we just simply don’t watch any longer.

I’ve also been listening to the podcasts of Dave’s radio show that I download to my iTouch. This morning I had a moment. I had a huge moment that changed my marriage – and R doesn’t even know it yet. A gentleman called in with some concerns because he invested in a franchise and did it all on debt. He struggled to keep current on everything and has until next month. He is an entrepreneur and this is one of his first big things that struggled. They have multiple children and went from a $200k/year income to $40k/year income.

Dave’s final word of advice to this gentleman was to above all else hold tight to his marriage. Above everything else, his marriage and his family were most important. Then he said the magic words of encouragement, “My friend you will be back to making the kind of money you need. It is who you are, you know how to do it so you’ll get back there. The only reason any of us are as successful as we are now is because we failed before. But we just didn’t give up.”

A year into our marriage Raymonn was talking to me about an idea he had. He knew it was “the one.” It was going to be the idea that would revolutionize something or other – and he just needed to take out a loan to do it. He needed to pay a programmer to get it done, he already had the quote, had spoken with the bank and had gotten approved. I told him during a very heated conversation that under no circumstances did I agree or would I “allow” yet another loan to go through. Imagine my surprise a week later as I was checking our online accounts to notice a line of credit open… I flipped. I flipped out. I was so angry I didn’t even call him for a few hours, I just went on a long walk.

I’ve been angry about that for years. I told him I was going to have no part in it, I wasn’t going to deal with it, wasn’t going to think about it – no way was I going to pay for it. Most of my frustration came from the fact that I had worked very hard to clean up some poor choices made by some friends of his in college – they were affecting his credit score and I knew being married and wanting to buy a  house, needing a car eventually… that we needed good credit scores.

Eventually I learned that things with the LOC just were not getting handled. It is not a strength of R’s and I now both recognize  and accept that. So I begrudgingly set up an automatic w/draw from our checking account but was upset still years later at having to get that minor detail taken care of.

Yeah, he failed at that idea. He made a poor decision – it affected our marriage for years as it was always built upon other frustrations. However, my husband has an entreprenurial spirit – it is just in him and it isn’t going away. Do I still like the fact that we have this oustanding loan. No. I hate debt. However, we are a family. We are a team. We have both made mistakes and poor choices. And this LOC is no longer “my husbands” debt. This is OUR debt. WE are going to work together to get this paid off. We have one loan in front of it and then it’s next on our radar. Totally going down before the fall.

The only reason people are successful is because they failed. Not just financially, not just in business, but it resonates through so many other aspects of life. We’re going on this journey together, TMMO, parenthood, marriage, LIFE. It’s time I alter my view and make that more inclusive. Better yet, I have peace about it. It was a small detail that festered and made me angry for a very long time. Letting go of that, being able to think about and talk about finances – all aspects of them- without getting angry or stressed is itself an accomplishment. Proof that you don’t have to be completely debt free in order to start gaining Financial PEACE.