F is for FINANCES (yikes!)

Budget. Just that one word evokes a string of emotions and a rise of angst in my gut. For me, it brings back memories that make me feel ashamed of my past and some downright ridiculous choices I’ve made.

October marks our 12th wedding anniversary. 12 years! In the beginning of our marriage, I was the free spirit with money and Nate was the saver. Perhaps I’m just that spirited and persuasive, that at some point, we both became free spirits when it came to credit and spending. We were living the dream in Hawaii, or so we imagined. Nate was in the military and I had my dream job (it just didn’t pay so well). Bank loans secured what we wanted. New cars. A condo. A crazy 42’ boat. We both worked long days and thought we deserved to indulge ourselves with nice things. And hey, we could “afford it”. After all, debt is normal, right?! So long as we were able to service our loans, things were “fine”.

With Nate’s time in the service coming to a close, we made the decision not to re-enlist in the military, but wanted to remain in Hawaii. We ran into trouble when we couldn’t find a decent paying job for him (and if you’ve ever been to Hawaii you know things aren’t cheap!). Even when we couldn’t make all our payments on time, we were still in denial that we were out of control with our spending.

“Either you deal with what is the reality, or you can be sure that the reality is going to deal with you,” Alex Haley.

Fast forward several months, and we were now in Canada. It was 2008 and the recession had hit us hard. After our renters fell through on our condo back in Hawaii, and every other sale opportunity fell through, we had to voluntarily foreclose (ouch, that hurts to admit publically!). We lived in my parents’ basement as we were drowning in debt (that was humbling!). Over a year later, we were able to rent a place in town on our own. Nate was commuting to his work in Mississauga every day and listened to podcasts to help pass the time on the 401 parking lot, I mean highway. He came across the Dave Ramsey show and was getting inspired by stories of people getting out of debt. These people were making some unpopular decisions in their journey to turn their finances around. I was sick of hearing “Dave Ramsey says…” when Nate got home every night. I didn’t know this Dave Ramsey guy, but I knew I didn’t like him. He wanted me to stop using even my debit card – is he crazy?! He wanted us to “live like no one else, so that one day we might live like no one else”. Would that even work?

Nate pestered me about hiring a Dave Ramsey financial coach, and I resisted for months. I hated the idea of letting someone know (besides ourselves and our lenders) that we were flat.out.broke. I was mortified to admit to another human being that we couldn’t handle our finances. I still don’t know how Nate convinced me in the end, but we made the arrangements and started meeting with Phil, our financial coach every two weeks via Skype. Phil stretched us and we had to make some uncomfortable (and unpopular) decisions. It forced us to make some major habit changes – the ones that got us into debt in the first place. Working with cash only was hard at first, really hard, and at times was embarrassing when I was counting loose change at the grocery checkout. But less than a year later, we were able to scream “we’re debt free!” live, on the Dave Ramsey show! (I really wish we could find a copy of that show somewhere).

We had a million excuses not to get started. Drowning in debt, we never thought it would be possible to get out. When we first committed to getting out of debt, Nate was paid by commission, no base salary & now is self employed. We understand what it’s like not having a stable income. But little by little, as we paid off our debts from the smallest to largest, we gained momentum and enthusiasm.

Six years later, we still apply the same principles, and are debt free, except for the mortgage. We no longer drive new cars and opt for fuel efficiency (hello, Prius). It’s still hard telling people “no” to things, when we don’t have the cash. Sometimes I still find myself comparing myself to others – but we have learned that a big house and fancy cars are not worth being enslaved to. It’s okay to have nice stuff – just don’t let it own you. When you don’t have payments, you are free to do other things – to give like never before & build towards your future.

A budget doesn’t have to be fancy. Heck, it doesn’t even have to involve Excel spreadsheets! Simply put, “a budget is telling your money where to go instead of wondering where it went” (Dave Ramsey). It gives you permission to spend, within certain boundaries you establish. I know – it sounds so simple, it can’t work. But it’s about discipline and making decisions at the beginning of the month about what you will say yes and no to.

If you are struggling in the area of finances and budgeting, can I encourage you to check out Dave Ramsey? There’s tons of free resources on his website www.daveramsey.com.

I’ll be honest. The free spirit in me still hates the budgeting process, but I do like the results! There’s incredible freedom when you make the commitment to be weird and live debt free.

#DaveRamsey #Finance #Debt