How I use Dave Ramsey's Program in my Daily Life: Day 3 of Money Series

Dave Ramsey is an extraordinary person to me! His story is a lifetime of growing and learning and still to this day he has never stopped learning. I love listening to his stories and his amazing testimonies. So here is how I use his tools in my life.

He has a tested system on what you should do with your money called the baby steps:

Now let me break baby steps down for you:

Baby step 1: The first baby step  (bs) is just getting an $1000 emergency fund (ef) into a savings account. This is strictly for emergencies but if you can't put food on your table or can't pay rent do that first before putting this money into savings. That is called your four walls. As soon as you get caught up on that then start putting any extra money into the emergency fund.

This step really got me going because I quit doing anything extra because all I wanted was 4 digits in my account by a certain date. I even sold a couple of things just so I can meet my goal and I am pretty sure I met it with one day to go.

Baby step 2: Just as simple as it sounds this step is to pay debt off. What is the "Debt Snowball"? All it means is pay your debts from smallest to largest so that you have quick wins and you stick to the plan.

I didn't have experience with this step because I have never had debt so onto baby step 3!

Baby step 3: THE HARDEST! Oh this one is not so easy! This is what I am currently on. There are no quick wins. There is no certain number that you have to get to. You have to judge this one on your own!  I am currently one month ahead of myself and I work daily on this. Any penny that I get goes to this and every dollar has a place!

Baby Step 4,5 and 6: Your supposed to do these 3 all at the same time. All of the money that was going to ef and debt gets kicked into these 3 categories. I am so excited to do this and be done with the baby steps!

Baby step 7: This is the one that excites me the most because it means you're done everything that you could possibly do to save money now go out and have fun.



Another term I learned from him is Every Dollar has it's place which means: When I get my paycheck I know where each dollar is going to go. I have a written plan for each thing. If I found a dollar on the floor right now I know exactly which category of money it would go into. This helps with spending when you really don't need to and it helps with saving ways

The last thing that I know I got from his program is his Cash Envelopes: If you have been reading my blogs you know that I keep my money in categories. For example, I have a rent category, a food category and a clothing category. The rent one needs $300 each month, food needs $200, and clothing needs $100. So each month I try to fill up my envelopes as I go and if by the end of the month I have extra money then I can either go shopping or rollover if I am behind. It shows exactly what I can buy and works perfectly.

Thank you so much for reading and staying up with me. Writing this blog has been a major accomplishment and everyday gets better and better.