Tracee, I am so lovin’ your blog. This is all right up my alley. I would love to get together with you and share creative thoughts on all matters frugal. 452-0045

~Jen

Then she mentioned that her house payment was only two months late and about a year ago they had all the furniture repossessed and just got this new stuff financed.

Omigod. that is unbelievable. I cannot imagine being worried about my mortgage payment. I could not handle that kind of stress. That makes me feel sick just thinking about it.

Yep, we have very little furniture and I’m perfectly happy with that. Bret insisted in the budget on putting $100 per month into an envelope for “home improvement”, so we’re going to save that up and use that for things here and there such as new doorknobs and eventually maybe a kitchen table and chairs. But the big stuff is definitely going to have to wait. It’ll be so worth it when the time comes! I used to honestly worry about what people would think if they came over and saw our awful couch, but now I couldn’t care less! Besides, I don’t want to be friends with anyone who would care that we don’t have alot of nice furniture. We do have a nice dining table, which we bought pre-dave ramsey, but at least we didn’t finance it. And thank god we didn’t finance our television. But no more big purchases. Time enough for that later! Besides life if great even without all that stuff.

When i met bret he had these most hideous chairs that i’ve ever seen in my whole life. they were dining room chairs like from the 1970’s, with wheels, and with puke yellow 70’s upholstery all over them. I hated those chairs with every fiber of my being. I made us get rid of them asap. Now those yellow chairs don’t seem like such a big deal! Bret was so frustrated by my hatred of those chairs.

So, our new budget is up and running as of March 1. We’re using the envelope system and it’s great. We get one restaurant night per week. That makes it so much more special, plus it saves lots of $.

You want to know something awful? As recently as last month, and it’s happened about 4 or 5 times that I can remember, our t-mobile automatic payment was rejected b/c there wasn’t enough money in the bank. That payment debits on the very last day of the month. The kicker is that we make too much money for us to deduct my student loan interest from our taxes. We make more than the average couple according to TurboTax. Dave Ramsey would have yelled at us in disgust if I’d called into his show. How embarrassing is that.

some of the people who call in to the show are sooooo sad. Like when there is a couple in their 60’s, who have lots of debt and no savings. Yikes.

I really REALLY love Dave Ramsey.

Really, you already took the big step – two people = one life = marriage right? Money is not going to give or take away your security. Without your seperate account you are still Rebecca, an independent and financially secure person with a law degree and soon with her own law practice.

Of course you will still have your own money in the form of Blow money – it’s up to you and Brett how much you get to spend in that blow money. We do $25 each a week – but, we have a lower income than you two. And you don’t need two accounts because according to Dave Ramsey’s plan you decide how much you are going to spend and then you carry that much cash around with you and you don’t access your account but once a week.

And lunches out is a HUGE money waster. We’ve been eating way healthier without the lunching or eating out. Now when we do it – it really is exciting because we don’t do it every other day.

You, and we, are the perfect examples of highly educated people who don’t understand or deal with money in appropriate ways – thanks for making me take college algebra – that was helpful. Could’ve made me take a year of how to determine an interest rate or what is a financial priority!