How I've been Stupid with Zeros...My Story (Part 1)

I'll tell you right up front that my story is nothing compared to Dave Ramsey or others that have done incredibly unintelligent things with money and paid the price. My guess is that my wife and I have been fairly normal, with a debt load that was somewhat manageable, but we never had any margin in our lives. Instead of having a good emergency fund in place, we would have to finance emergencies (through a personal loan or credit cards) and pay those off as quickly as possible. I disliked debt and didn't necessarily want to make payments, but I assumed it was a necessary evil in how we did American finances.

About five or six years ago, I was going through a bookstore and saw this book sitting on a shelf:



Being an avid reader in the areas of business and finance, the title intrigued me, so I purchased the book and read it from cover to cover in just a few short days. I loved the concepts in this book by Dave Ramsey, but I had a problem. I was still holding on to a few financial belief systems such as:

1. You absolutley need to own/finance a house for tax benefits. It's better to be house rich and cash poor.
2. You can grow yourself out of debt without tight controls on spending.
3. Even though you buy used cars at a good price and aren't getting clobbered by depreciation, you will probably still need to make small payments to a finance company in order to have vehicles to drive.
4. Going into debt for a business start-up (and continued growth) is an investment.

So, even after reading Financial Peace, these false beliefs were holding me captive. I continued being slightly house rich and cash poor, financing used vehicles, and trying to grow myself out of debt by going into debt even further by starting a business with a house refinance and personal loan.

Three years ago, though, something major happened that caused my world to be rocked and helped me rethink the direction my family was headed.

I'll fill you in on the details in Part 2 tomorrow!

Larry