Dave Ramsey has made getting out of debt cool. His organization and resources have helped millions of families get debt free. Check them out at www.daveramsey.com. They have a great class called Financial Peace University, and we use his Total Money Makeover with all our clients.
However, during a financial hurricane is not the time to spend your extra money trying to get debt free. It is time to hunker down.
Our advice is to pay the minimum amounts on your debts. Stay current if possible. There will be time to accelerate your debt payoff later.
A few years ago, my family was going through a difficult time, and for the first time in my adult life, I was late on a bill. Not just one bill, but a lot of bills. Not just grace-period-late, but a month behind. Then one month became two months and then three months behind. Continue reading “Pay Debt Minimums in a Crisis”
“It’s the most wonderful time of the year…for the credit card companies. There is much jingle belling and hearts will be telling of credit galore. It’s the happiest season for more.” Ok, so I reworded the old classic Carole. But someone needs to say it, “don’t spend more than you can afford on Christmas- this year.” Reign it back in if you didn’t save well. 
We all grow up dreaming of a Wonderful Life. Family and friends who love us. Good job. Nice house. Plenty of food. Enough money to take care of our needs and even some of our wants. When I got married one of my friends was asked to give us marriage advice. His advice was classic. “Tim, give Terri everything she wants.” “Terri, only want what you need.” I can still remember his wife catcalling from the background about his bad advice. But, behind his playful banter was a principle. And the principle is this; for a family to be successful the family has to be on the same page and have a plan. Particularly in the area of money. Nothing will challenge a marriage more than how to manage the family resources. 
Last night my son exposed me to the biggest star that science has discovered to date. The name of the star is 
We see it every day. College graduates (some of them not so recent) saddled with the repayment of school loans that is quite frankly eating their lunch. It is becoming apparent to me that we are not doing a good enough job helping our students do the simple math of the loans. The simple math of how much to borrow and what is will actually cost you to repay the loans. Borrowing is the easy part, repayment is the bear. It is obvious that the lending institutions are expecting the student to figure out how much to borrow and the students still live in the la-la land of “someday they will be making it big and will have plenty of money to repay whatever loans they incur”. What is worse is that many parents are taking a cavalier attitude towards preparing their students to navigate the loan game. Seems that everyone these day put themselves through school walking up hills both ways in the snow with a full time job. 
