the plan

HERE i talked about how Crystal and i are following a plan and following it to a "T". Then i wrote a little prequel to this plan HERE.

I promised to drop this plan on you guys. It's from a guy named Dave Ramsey. I think he's a genius and his plan (below) has changed our lives. i pretty much think everyone should follow it. You can read it from Dave in The Total Money Makeover.
Here's my attempt to lay it on you as simply & SHORT as possible...

1  Save $1,000 FAST. like this month. seriously.
sell something if you have to, but save $1K in cash as an emergency fund NOW. see, the 1st step was easy right?

2  GET OUT OF DEBT! via the "debt snowball". basically start with your smallest debt or credit card & pay that bad boy off ASAP. then take the money you were paying on it and roll it over to the next smallest debt... repeat over and over & by the time you get to your biggest debt you will be putting a BIG chunk of money toward paying it off every month. pretty soon you'll be DEBT FREE!

3  Finish your EMERGENCY FUND. Obviously $1K is not enough for major emergencies (& YOU WILL have one). You need 3-6 months of expenses in the bank readily available. Imagine the freedom when you know you could live for 3-6 months if everyone in your house lost their jobs! pretty reassuring in this economy.

4  RETIREMENT! As soon as you have your emergency fund in place you have a TON of money freed up each month, so immediately start putting away 15% of your income into retirement accounts! Start with fully funding a Roth IRA (up to $6K for a couple) and matching 401Ks... START YOUNG! you'll end up with millions!

5  Save up for your kids' college tuition. Pretty much all college students go into crazy debt when they go to school! not cool. you can do something about that though! change your family tree. At this step start investing NOW for your kids into an ESA (Educational Savings Account). $200 a month will pretty much send your kids to any college they wanna go to.

6  PAY OFF YOUR HOME! Oh yeah. As Dave says "The paid off home mortgage has replaced the BMW as the status symbol of choice." seriously. OWN your home. straight up. totally possible.

7  Build Wealth like CRAZY! invest all this crazy ton of money you've got now because you don't owe anything! All your income is yours. Growth Stock Mutual Funds all the way... maybe even buying some real estate. you'll be a millionaire in no time.

*For me personally, this was brilliant because it was EASY. 1 step at a time. a dummy like me can follow this thing and be a millionaire. i think i'll tell our story with this plan tomorrow.