24 Daze

It’s been 24 days since my last blog post.

 

 

It’s a sad pun, but I mean it. It has been a daze. It has been cuh-razy. Such is life.

Speaking of life: Amazewife and I are pregnant.

“But RI, how could you possibly have another baby while you’re trying to get out of debt?” said none of my readers, ever.

Really. Ever. I have not heard that question a single time. I hear so little from the people who read my blog that I have to make up questions while I’m writing it. Like the one just before this paragraph. But that one was silly. This one is more like it:

“RI, what do you do with your debt snowball now that you have a baby on the way?”

Now THAT is a quality question, fictitious-reader-in-my-head.

There are hundreds and thousands of singles and couples, young and old, that are sick of being in debt. They are sick of having an axe made out of credit card bills and car loan payment booklets hanging over their necks.

Every day, more and more of them change directions like Meredith and I did. They decide enough is enough. They give up Dominos and buy Little Caesar’s. They give up Trader Joe’s and buy Western Family. They sell so many things that what children they do have start to think they are next.

Then the car starts making a noise. Or the roof starts leaking. Or they feel like God wants them to have a cute baby. Or they are surprised to find out that God has mad skills in the baby department. (Surprise!)

All of these represent large expenditures that are a ways off. You can see them coming. You can hear the thunder. (That’s a moody pregnant wife joke.) There’s a big event on the way.

So what do you do? Where do you steer your Total Money Makeover plans?

Simple. You drop anchor and bail.

“You QUIT?!”

Yep.

“Just like that?”

Just like that.

“But what about the wisdom and the principles?”

Right. You don’t drop everything you’ve learned to be true and go whole happy hog on buying pink basinets and $400 cloth diapers on credit. Nor do you fleece a new 18 person van because you’re going from two people to three in your family.

You stop the Total Money Makeover, but only to pile cash.

If you are in baby step two, you’ve got $1,000 for emergencies in the bank. Your debt has been dying its terrible death. You need to stop the extra payments and throw all extra money in a giant pile.

Once the baby comes, or the car is fixed, or the roof is replaced, and everyone is home and healthy and safe and PAID FOR IN CASH, you count what’s left. Every last penny left over smashes back into the debt snowball after that. You only come out a little bit behind from the interest that you would have saved paying along the way. But who knows. Heck, the Lord might hide a few G’s in the pile for you. He tends to reward big for a little bit of diligence.

Which leads me back to my pun in the title. The last 24 days have been a blur. Work has been hard, at both jobs. I was paid with bra money for the first time delivering pizzas (yuck.) And I’ve been trying to change habits at job #1 (ouch.) We’ve had more car repairs happen (paid for in cash,) and I’m trying to get up earlier so I can study Scripture. The Princesses have been royally sick lately, as have Meredith and I. And I am terribly addicted to pop. Put it together and what have you got? At least one disappointed reader, imaginary or real. And a disappointed writer.

I’ll continue to catalogue how this experience works for us as we apply it in real life. If you have questions or comments, please head over to the Facebook page or reach out below.

Time to turn that snowball into a mountain. Still wouldn’t complain, though, if number 4 popped out holding a couple grand… start pulling his/her weight around here early. But that might be just a little too…

ROE INTENSE