Dave Ramsey

Have you read Dave Ramsey? My sister gave me a book of his and recommended it to me. I read the whole thing, but have to say we're not following his book exactly. His "after" sounds very promising, and his arguments are sound, except for one thing: his idea is that the first few years of following his plan, you're basically doing nothing but working your ass off scrimping and saving until you pay off your debts, with $1,000 in your emergency fund.

Well, when am I going to be 27 again, newly married, with no kids? I have friends moving away to go to graduate school and who knows where they'll find jobs. We are pretty frugal, we never carry debt on our credit cards, but I think we should be having some fun at this part. We have a restaurant budget, the amount of which we're going to decrease while I'm not getting paid, but we do go out sometimes (especially when our friends are available). And I think that's the point of handling our money: being able to go out.

Also, the emergency fund: I would have daily panic attacks if our emergency fund was only $1000. We never would have been able to get our cavities filled! Not to mention that I'm paid hourly as a teacher, so things like spring break and certainly summer could mean us defaulting on the mortgage. So Dave Ramsey might be disappointed in us, but I don't quite think following his plan to a t is the right thing for us.

I will say, though, that his stories of all those people with so much debt made me feel better about my situation : )