GULP

Has it been over a year since I last blogged!?! We’ve been in the trenches, grinding out baby step 3.

A summary of 2015:

Chasing a toddler around while trying to survive the Texas heat, while pregnant. That’s right! We added on! In August we met our second little boy.

And seriously – paying medical bills, being pregnant, keeping the toddler alive, meeting the new baby, dipping in and out of the emergency fund because of slow work & medical expenses sums up all of 2015.

SO…. I picked the blog back up as things start to settle down.

AND because we have a new update!!!

Quick summary from when we started this journey in January of 2012 until now (4 years):

*Paid off 46K in debt in 22 months (Read our “by the numbers” posts starting in January 2012 to see how we did that.)

*Paid for items without going into more debt: A minivan, foundation repair, new hot water heater, a couple of mattresses, a washer, as well as a garage renovation

*We welcomed 2 children into the family (which resulted in maxing out our deductibles 2 of the last 4 years. 6K and 12K!)

*Experienced 1 layoff – and from that point on have only had one income

*Experienced a couple of slow work cycles

This last year (2015), similar to when we were paying off debt in 2013 and our first son was born, we were really cautious. We also had to pre-pay my OB early in the year. After the deductibles were reached, and we got our pre-pay money back, we were able to put a little bit more toward the emergency fund. My husband had a couple of large projects come up in the fall, right as we were calculating medical expenses.

Overall, we ended 2015 being a little discouraged. In rough estimates, 2015 resulted in 25% drop in income.

One super positive note from this stat is our extreme gratitude that God continues to provide for our needs. We have the four walls (food, transportation, shelter/utilities, clothing) covered no problem. We are so thankful for starting this journey 4 years ago, it gave us the tools and skills to keep a close eye on every dollar in, every dollar out. A 25% drop in income is very likely to cause disaster. For us, it did not.

The year ended and we were relieved to see it and it’s expenses go away.

And then, something unexpected happened.

January 2016. A couple of big, outstanding checks arrived. We never know when checks will come in – and honestly, we almost have to live as if they won’t. Having a client owe money is very different, and less secure, than having your employer owe you a paycheck.

When the checks arrived, we were amazed. It was what we needed to FINISH OUR 6 MONTH EMERGENCY FUND.

That’s right— we are FINALLY DONE with baby step 3!

*Phew* big sigh of relief.

We can now move on.  It’s possible we will have to dip into the fund again, and finish it, and use it, finish it, etc. – but we are choosing to mentally move on. We won’t abandon the fund and be without a safety net, but we also need to start focusing on some other items.

Our specific plan is a little in the air.  It will be some type of step forward, perhaps baby step 3b, or baby step 4 (or a combination of the two).

Baby step 3B is a down payment.  We would like a slightly different living situation. While we do “own” our home, the equity if sold today, will not be enough for a 20% down payment for the type of home we are looking for in our area.

Baby step 4 is investing 15% of  income to retirement, making use of all tax-free options as best as possible.  We have invested in the past, and have made small contributions in the last 4 years, but we would like to get that up and rolling to the full 15%.

And with that – while we are not done with the baby steps – I’m probably done blogging about our baby steps journey. The first three steps are the hardest, but they are also the most measurable. For more info on the baby steps – and to see how you can get started, visit Dave Ramsey’s website.

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What’s Next?

When I blogged about our goal for 2012, we started out by saying we were going through Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University.

From that, we learned the 7 baby steps. Getting out of debt (all except for our house) was only step 2. We have a long way to go. 🙂

So what’s next? Naturally, step 3, which is a fully funded emergency fund. Dave recommends is 3-6 months of expenses.

I wanted to lay some ground work for this step.

First, we will be going for an entire 6 months of expenses for our emergency fund. We felt that with the feast or famine nature of a small business, it would be better if we had 6 months.

Secondly, I will not be posting exact dollar amounts when I report on progress for this step. We felt it was a little to personal of financial information to have out there in the world, letting everyone basically know what our monthly income averages. Instead, I will be reporting using percentages, with 100% fully funded being the obvious finish line for this step.

Third (and you might get mad at us for this one), our first progress report on this step is…
We are now at 50% of our goal.

Say what!? Ok, here’s why. Baby step 1 is a $1,000 emergency fund. From the get-go (prior to our even being married) my husband has been a super saver. When, in our second year of marriage, we talked about starting the baby steps, we decided that it was ok to continue to hold the 3 months of emergency fund aside that he already had in savings and to not put it toward debt at that time like Dave says.

A few things influenced this decision.

1. The potential extreme swings of income with a small business. We did not feel at all comfortable with such a small emergency fund.

2. Part of the reason Dave says $1,000 is for motivational purposes. If the emergency fund goal in step 1 is too big, people will become discouraged while saving for that first amount and give up. Since we already had the money, this wasn’t an issue.

3. Dave really wants to put a fire under people. There can be a little bit of panic in the idea that you only have $1,000. He likes people to use that panic to their advantage and start hustling on step 2 so they can finish and get back to saving. We knew ourselves well enough and trusted that we would not have an issue hustling.

4. In situation of overwhelming amounts of debt, taking a large chunk of change out of savings and throwing at debt can be a tremendous leap forward, helping people start the process with great momentum. Before we started in January of 2012, we had an incredible Q4 of 2011. We had a great boost of momentum without raiding the emergency fund. And for our total amount of debt, it would have had only a small impact on the timeline and reduction of interest we paid.

There you go. Our intent was not to be dishonest. And with the last 22 months in the rear-view mirror we know there were a few moments where we really thought even our “Crisis Fund” would be used up and we’d have to dip into the emergency fund. Not blogging about the emergency fund helped me keep it out of sight, out of mind, so that we would continue to hustle.

We are thankful that we gave ourselves some grace, and modified the Baby Steps from the start.