Posted on May 28, 2009 at 11:56 am Hi, all!   I'm a newbie to the forum. DH and I have just completed dave ramsey's book, Financial Peace. We will be wriging our budgets down (we have separate accounts) and starting with our elminiating debt process on the next time I get paid (next month).   Roughly, we have about 100k (including our house). Most of our debt is our house ~60K, our CC's: 5k, home equity loan: 3,200, car loan: 15K, student loan: 15K. All in all we aren't in "bad" shape but are looking forward to becoming debt free!   Any advice on the budgeting, etc? DH has a second income and so do I so we are hoping that will really help with what Dave calls a "debt snowball".   Thanks in advance, ~Cynthia~

Posted on May 28, 2009 at 12:07 pm Hi Cynthia, I think Dave does a great job of teaching people some effective methods for not getting into debt. However, I know Dave is against debt consolidation as a whole, which I personally disagree with. He seems to believe that everyone can dig themself out of whatever hole they are in, and that nobody can truly benefit from consolidating their debt. While I agree with his budgeting principles, I think he is a little over the top at times regarding debt relief solutions. If someone needs to get out of debt faster (or wants to), options such as credit counseling and debt settlement can be very effective. Furthermore, some people are so far under their debt that they have really no other choice but to seek professional assistance. With that being said, Dave is a fairly business savvy guy who, considering our current economic situation in the US, is certainly targeting the right audience. In terms of budgeting- it is really important to sit down and get everything on paper, in terms of your expenses and what you have for disposable income each month. I find that a lot of people take this first step, but then they do not follow it! So once you have established a budget, figured out what you can put towards you debt, what you can put in your savings account and what you have for spending purposes, stay the course and be patient!

Posted on May 29, 2009 at 5:04 am Personally I think the Debt Snowball is a good idea for people who just lack the motivation to get out of debt.  The reason being is you need to see results quickly sometimes and that's essentially what the Debt Snowball advocates - paying off your smallest balances first, not the one's which have the highest interest.    

Posted on May 29, 2009 at 6:20 am With your debt amount, I would definitely be cautious about using theRamsey approach because you could end up paying a lot more money toget out of debt if you don't pay off your high interest accountsfirst.If your situation is not bad, as you mention, and your interest ratesare all the same, then the Ramsey method is perhaps a good one, but Iwould definitely avoid it if you for example, you are having troublewith your payments or if you have an account that's large and has ahigh interest rate.

Posted on May 29, 2009 at 10:04 am Thanks for the advice. I think my highest interest rate is 9.75% and that is my CC (which has the least amount owed) so we are actually paying that one off first! The house is only a 3% mortgage because my husband is a city worker and several years ago they were trying to get people to buy in the city he worked in and was offering this amazing deal. This of course was before we were married and when he was just starting out his career. He got incredibly lucky with the loan! My student loan and car pa load are about the same but the car loand is 6.25% and my student loan is 4.25%, so we'll be paying the car off first when we get to that part of the snow ball! Do any of you find this website's budget easy to manuever? I looked at it very briefly. Are you supposed to put your gross income since it's asking for other items like 401K, taxes, etc.?