What is Financial Peace??? And Where the heck do I find it???

So last year I started trying to follow Dave Ramsey and he talks a lot about financial peace. You know the whole live debt free, or as he likes to say “If you live like no one else, then you can live like no one else”.  I have such a hard time trying to follow that. Not saying it’s a hard method to follow its just hard to follow when the money isn’t coming in.

My husband got laid off the week before Christmas and has yet to find another job. So I went out and applied to be a substitute teacher and finally after all the clearances and training I can finally start. Now since I can’t guarantee that I will be getting a that many jobs tomorrow I am going out and applying at a local bar/restaurant to try and be a waitress. I have never done that before but I am just trying to make a bit of money. Like I said in a previous post I am scared, anxious and not looking forward to it. I hate the thought of leaving Ella. Hell even leaving the house sometimes scares the crap out of me. But sometimes you just have to fight yourself to get done what needs done. That struggle isn’t an easy one at all.

How I got in this mess.

Everyone has their stupidities right? Well when I was in college, I was determined to build my credit up so when I graduated I could move out of my moms. I got my first credit card during college, it was a chase card with a basic $300 dollar limit. That wasn’t the only one. I then got 3 more which wouldn’t have been all that bad if I stuck to my original plan. Buy something small then pay it off in full every month. Well things came up (don’t they always) and I spent more then I wanted to.

First I got my ex a new phone and put him on my cell phone plan and got a wedding band for him since we were engaged. Then I had friends who were in a rough spot so i felt the need to help them with the thought of them paying me back when they could. You can see where this is heading right. All I wanted to do was help people and that’s what I did. To be honest I was still doing fine, or so I thought. Then the New Years Eve before we were going to get married…my ex broke up with me. Since he was on my cell phone plan he said he would help pay for it, and I believed him.

Well he never did, so I canceled his phone. Because it was under contract, I had to pay a cancellation fee then also pay for the phone. So all in all that cost around a grand…

Then I went on my internship that I needed to graduate college, so I didn’t work for a long time and things fell behind and everything started going downhill. I never recovered.

How I plan on getting peace for our family.

That was 5 years ago so as you can imagine interest, collections…and then student loans came into play also. Anyways…Now that the back story is done and over with let’s turn this over to positivity ok…Ok 🙂

So as I stated earlier I currently am a sub for our local school district. Tomorrow I have an interview at the bar/restaurant and hopefully it goes well. It is killing me inside doing this but I am determined to get at least non student loans paid off this year. I am starting with the Dave Ramsey 7 baby steps. For those who don’t know what those are they go as followed:

• $1,000 to start an Emergency Fund
• Pay off all debt using the Debt Snowball
•  3 to 6 months of expenses in savings
• Invest 15% of household income into Roth IRAs and pre-tax retirement
• College funding for children
• Pay off home early
• Build wealth and give!

I feel bad for my husband seeing as 95% of our family debt is unfortunately mine. Thankfully he understands ya know things happen and such. I just wish I didn’t have all of this debt in the first place. I know I cannot change the past but I know that with work I can change the future. As a child who grew up in poverty, I don’t want my daughter to grow up like that. Thankfully she is young enough to not really realize what is going on so I am hoping by that time we are in a better place and more financially stable. I just hope it doesn’t take long…or that my anxiety and depression can be kept in check so I can deal with it all.

Well that’s all for now. Thanks for reading 🙂