Evolving Personal Finance » debt
Short-Term Challenges to Speed Debt Repayment
One of the coaching clients I met with recently is going to be working his way out of debt for a number of years (unless something changes drastically). Of course, as per the protocol, we talked about Dave Ramsey’s plan and about how he thought he would be psychologically motivated by the early win of paying off his lowest balance debt first. The client stated that he has been successful in the past saving up money … Read entire article »
Filed under: debt
The Thinking Person’s Guide to Dave Ramsey: Underlying Principles
As I stated in the overview for this series, in this first post I will share what I have observed are the key foundational views of money on which Dave Ramsey’s entire program is based, the underlying principles. If you disagree with any one of these views, DR’s program is either not for you or you will want to make some modifications to follow it successfully. You Want to Plug in to a Simple, Universal Program DR’s … Read entire article »
Filed under: debt, psychology, savings, values
Talking to People Who Are Different from You about PF
Last week, I promoted one of my blog posts on my personal Facebook profile. (I know that’s crazy to anonymous PF bloggers, but I’m completely open about my blog IRL!) It was the review of the Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard, and you can see I was pushing it a bit. (We just signed up for our second one last night! Woohoo!) I knew that some of my FB friends would see that and consider signing … Read entire article »
Filed under: credit cards, debt, family
Don’t Buy into the Pro- or Anti-Credit Card Hype
Last week’s FPU lesson was “Dumping Debt,” which was rather different from what I expected. Dave spent a lot of time talking about the disadvantages of various kinds of debt and not as much as I thought he would on the mechanics of the debt snowball. Of course, credit cards were pointed out as a particular evil, not just in the video but also reinforced by the class exercises. One exercise was to stand up … Read entire article »
Filed under: credit cards, debt
What Are You Gazelle Intense About?
This post was inspired by the recent Get Rich Slowly article on pushing vs. relaxing in personal finances. A “pushing” phase is when you are super intense about your finances and making sacrifices in other areas of your life, like relationships and health. Circumstances that should bring about pushing are living beyond your means, feeling a lot of stress about your finances, or when you are nearing default on a loan. Similarly, Dave Ramsey would … Read entire article »
Filed under: budgeting, debt, psychology, spending
On Debt and Feeling Like a Slave
I’m honestly not sure how it happened, but I sort of forgot that the Bible compares being in debt to slavery. I hear Dave Ramsey say “the borrower is slave to the lender” on his podcast all the time – maybe that imprinted it on my brain as a Dave Ramsey-ism instead of recognizing it as Proverbs 22:7. And I haven’t made any decisions about debt recently so I guess I let it float out … Read entire article »
Filed under: debt
Rethinking Our Student Loan Repayment
I logged in to my Sallie Mae account recently – I check in on it 2-3 times per year just to make sure nothing has changed. My remaining loans are subsidized and in deferment so their balances should be completely static until I graduate and they come out of deferment. However, when I logged in this most recent time I noticed that the interest rate on three of my loans had dropped from 3.61% to … Read entire article »
My Sister’s Awesome Financial Decisions
I don’t talk about my family of origin a lot on this blog (for privacy reasons) but I want to suspend that policy for today’s post to brag about my sister. My sister is 25 and not a nerd. Like, I’m a nerd, right? I went to a nerd high school and a nerd college and now I’m doing a PhD in engineering and I picked up an interest in PF along the way, which … Read entire article »
Filed under: college, debt, family, goals, investing, retirement, savings, stock market
Trying Hard to Not Time the Market
Kyle and I have a decision to make! We have some subsidized and deferred student loan debt (i.e. sitting at 0%) and we also have the full amount of money we need to pay off these loans set aside. Most of that money is invested in mutual funds, but about $6,000 is in a CD that is maturing this month. When we first allocated our savings, we knew we should be conservative because we had a … Read entire article »
Filed under: debt, investing, savings, stock market
Attend Weddings But Don’t Go into Debt
Wedding season is upon us! I love marriage and I love attending weddings to spend time with and support our friends and family. That’s why I initially felt sympathy for Christopher Sledzik, the face that CNN put on its recent article on the rising cost of wedding attendance and the pressure friends and family feel to attend. Like Sledzik, we are also 27 and in the last three years have devoted all our vacation time … Read entire article »
Filed under: choices, credit cards, debt, marriage, savings, targeted savings, travel
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