So we spent a riviting night on Friday having a serious talk about our finances, about selling our house, about what we can realistically afford, and our hopes and dreams for the future. I had recorded Suzy Orman's "The Money Class" that aired on PBS last week. This opened up a lot of discussion about what we have, what we owe, and what we want to do with our money. I'm so glad that we watched this together. We were able to pause it and discuss what she was talking about and for once it was both of us learning together. In the past it went: I read, I try to explain, I don't get the point across, and Hubs doesn't want to get on board.
We decided that since we couldn't sell or rent our place out right now, moving in the next year or so just seemed unrealistic. We wanted to be able to put down more than a minimum down payment and wanted to not have to pay cash to get out of our current house. We've made enough updates in the past year that living there for the next couple years no longer seems like a prison sentence. With a Metro station within walking distance to our condo expected to begin operation in 2016, we have toyed with the idea of sticking around to be able to sell for a profit at that time. It is just 5 short years away and will open up so many more options if we don't have to lose money when we sell.
Dave Ramsey would be proud of this next part. Since we don't need a down payment fund right away, I took money from there and paid off our credit cards. Boom. Done. So now our plan is to spend with no credit cards and put all the money we monthly would have put towards those payments back into out down payment fund. We'll build that up and once we get to a more significant amount, we'll be able to start looking for a house again.
Now Dave would tell us to pay off our car next, but I just can't bring myself to pull another chunk of change out of our down payment/emergency fund. I like having a cushion to fall back on in case anything happened. We'll work to pay the car off early, but don't feel like I need to pay it off immediately.
So credit cards have been removed from wallets, budgets have been outlined, Husband is on board, and we are ready to start saving some cash! Another positive is no credit card debt means another item crossed of the 101 in 1001 list!!!
Have you had to sacrifice any dreams to make the more responsible financial decision?
while not quite on the same level...I feel like sacrificing my honeymoon to costa rica in order to pay for husband's job searching was a big thing (for me anyway...)
ReplyDeletei feel your pain. sometimes things don't quite work out the way we want them to.
and i understand about not wanting to pay the car off early. it's hard to take that much money away from what you have on hand should a REAL emergency happen.