On why Dave Ramsey is ruining my life

Not familiar with Dave Ramsey?  He has a three-hour radio show about personal finance, urging listeners to follow his baby steps to financial freedom1, most notably by getting—and staying—out of debt.

I got hooked on his show while I worked long library shifts in college with nothing else to do, and I was itching to throw everything I had at my student loans so that the Professor and I could move onward and upward.

And then the Professor decided to go to graduate school.

In a different state.

Where we’d live on his livable-but-not-roomy stipend².

And then we made tiny people who like to eat and wear clothes and expensive things like that.

And all of my debt-reduction schemes were reduced to so many abandoned Excel spreadsheets.

We’ve been faithful to pay on my student loans and are determined to avoid going into further debt during grad school, but my debt-reduction fervor faded and with it my penchant for listening to Uncle Dave on the radio…until recently.

For the past month, I’ve spent all of naptime listening to Dave give out advice and rail against credit cards.  I’ve made new charts.  I’ve made new goals and promises to myself.  Professor even agreed to a budget meeting before the end of the month.

A budget meeting!  With spreadsheets!   And pie charts!

But then things sort of soured:

•  Because it seemed all too easy for people making $100K to wipe up $25K of mess.

• Or it would be so nice to climb out of a million dollar hole…by selling a McMansion.

• Or who wouldn’t be debt-free if they were left a six-figure inheritance from a long-lost relative?

I became bitter.  And bitter is ugly.  I coveted what others have and that’s not only sinful…it’s petty.  And small.

So, I write all of this to say…we’re nowhere near debt-free, and I’m nowhere near perfect—our life is nowhere near perfect³, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t wonderful.  And now, more for my benefit than yours, are a few things I know we’ve done right in this still-weighed-down-by-student-loans-and-academic-poverty life we lead…

{1} Even if progress is slow, we’re winning.  We’re making good choices: we don’t do credit cards and we do pay above and beyond our student loan payment every month.  I wish I could move the needle on our debt-o-meter a lot faster, but it’s moving in the right direction, and it’s never going the other way again⁴.

{2} Not having money means lots of time for reading.  I had so much time on my hands when Professor was working and I wasn’t (first before I had a job, then after I came home).  I spent hours reading online about frugality, the drug store game, how to save on everything.  The library has been my second home and led me to subjects beyond just straight up frugality, which leads me to…

{3} Living frugally has given me lifelong, life-changing habits and outlooks.  I started out doing crunchy-granola, hippie things—like cloth diapering and line-drying clothes—to save money.  But a lot of reading (see #2 above) has really changed my thinking on a lot of things in this world and the impact little changes can make.  I don’t think we’ll stop being “crunchy” even when if the money starts rolling in.

{4} The want machine has slowed waaaaaaaaay down.  We don’t have the money to buy everything we want on a whim, so you can bet we think long and hard about things before we plunk down cash for them.  And you know what?  Other than a bike for me⁵ and a backpack for Professor, this year our “fun” money has gone almost entirely to clothes and beyond-the-basics, just-for-fun food.  “And having food and raiment let us be therewith content”—so saith the King James and we’re finding it to be so very true.

And so very good.

So, yes, we don’t have a lot, and my student loan debt bothers me like an itchy sweater I can’t take off, but I wouldn’t trade the lessons we’ve learned about money, stuff, and values for anything.

P.S.  I still love Dave Ramsey to pieces…I just might need to take a break from his show again until I can get my heart in line.

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1 When I read that, it sounds super cultish, but I promise it’s not.  Dave Ramsey has never hawked any Kool-Aid and there are so many ways to glean his advice without spending a dime.  Still, people love or hate the guy, so feel free to find out where you fall by visiting daveramsey.com to see what he’s all about.

2 So technically, we didn’t always live on just that, but since we got married in 2009 when you were more likely to get bitten by a shark (in Minnesota) than get a job, we budgeted as if his stipend was our only income.

3 If I say that I used #iliveintheghetto the other day, does that explain it well enough?

4 A house being the only exception, and even then, we’re super picky: 15-year fixed rate, more than 20% down, no more than $100K worth of loan, and we need to be able to pay it off in ten years or less.  But we’d love to see if we could save up and pay cash…it will all depend on the feels-forever-away future.

5 I lurve that hubby of mine. :D