Ramseynista

When I decided to become a Catholic after a decade as an atheist, I think a lot of my friends were worried I'd become all obnoxious about religion.  Now I do believe in living my faith, but I'm not an evangelist in the usual sense.  I don't approach strangers and ask, "Have you heard about Jeeeezus?"  So my friends and family were relieved that I took my faith very seriously, but also kept it pretty personal.

But then I found Dave Ramsey.

And now, instead of worrying that I might whip out my Bible at the table when we go to dinner, my friends live in a state of anxiety that I might whip out my budget.  I cannot stop talking about this guy and how he's changed my life.

That Guy introduced me to Dave Ramsey when we started getting to know each other, and a few months after we started dating, I began to notice weird things about my boyfriend.  For starters, payday was just the day he got paid.  It wasn't a biweekly event that triggered bipolar highs and lows as he moved from relief that his bank account would have money in it again for the first time in a week and a half to dread about all the money that would shortly be removed from his bank account to fear about how he'd make it to the next payday.  Which, as you've probably already guessed, is what payday was for me.

Now I'd have told you I was doing pretty great financially.  And, compared to a lot of my friends, I was.  My bills were (usually) paid, nothing ever got shut off, and all of the collectors who called me or sent me letters were talking about debts that were at least five years old, so... you know.  I wasn't complaining.  I'd never visited a payday lender, and when it had come time for me to buy a new car, I hadn't had to go to Drive Time or some other buy-here-pay-here place.  No, I'd been able to walk into a real, reputable dealership and get financing.  Also a ridiculous interest rate that was only slightly better than what a scummy buy-here-pay-here place would have charged me, but that wasn't the point.  The point was my life appeared to be pretty stable.  I didn't have the embarrassing, obvious "BROKE" labels taped to my forehead.

But money still stressed me out constantly.  I never had enough of it to do what I wanted to do, and if an emergency came up, I never even had enough to do what I needed to do.  A few times I even had to go begging for enough gas money to get to work, and that experience always left me feeling ashamed, guilty, and worthless for weeks afterwards.

But I still thought I was in pretty good shape.  And, again, compared to a lot of the people I knew, I was.  I was normal.  After all, it's normal to have a car payment.  It's normal to live paycheck-to-paycheck.  It's normal to have a wonky, suffocating debt-to-income ratio.  When I lamented my situation to others, I was informed, with varying degrees of patience and sympathy, that I didn't have it nearly that bad and it could be worse.

So I was perfectly normal.  But you know what I've learned?  Normal is broke.

I learned that from Dave Ramsey, though it's something I think I always knew, something I think everybody knows.  We all think (because we're taught) that debt is a privilege.  I remember my first credit card being literally presented to me, the way a queen receives a crown on her coronation.  The only thing missing was the fancy velvet pillow.  It was a huge deal that I could now buy things I couldn't afford.  And I did.  And I couldn't tell you what any of it was or where any of it is now, ten years later.

I always suspected that there was something messed up about the way we handle our money in this country, but I could never put my finger on it.  For starters, I just thought I was one of those people who didn't have a head for numbers.  Never mind that, when I worked really hard in college, I aced my math classes.  Clearly, I had the foundation of basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division necessary to run my household on a basic budget.  I just seemed to think -- as many of my friends and family members do -- that as soon as money became the topic of conversation, my I.Q. went down about 75 points.  So I didn't talk about it, and I tried to think about it as little as possible.  And I kept doing this, while occasionally having to beg my parents for gas or food money, for a few years before That Guy came into my life and brought Dave Ramsey with him.

It would be tacky for me to discuss That Guy's financial history without his permission, but I think it's safe to tell you that he worked the Ramsey plan before we met and had a tremendous amount of success with it.  He didn't make it sound easy when I casually asked him about it.  He told me he worked three jobs at one point.  He told me about the trouble he got into, and what I got was that this wasn't somebody who had some gift with money.  This was somebody like me.  This was somebody who'd ignored his finances, assumed the norm (being broke) was, if not fine, well, normal, and who thought that when it came to money management, you were either born with what it took, or you weren't.  And here he was, debt-free.  Here he was, totally clear-headed about money.  He was proof that it wasn't magic; it was hard work and sacrifice, but not magic.

I wanted it.

So I shyly asked if he'd maybe help me set up a budget.  The next thing I knew he'd created a beautiful, custom zero-based budget spreadsheet for me over the course of an afternoon.  The first time we sat down to plug in my numbers, I marveled at how, when I gave every dollar a name, my money not only did what I told it to do, there was actually enough left over to save.  I'd never had any money to save before!  And suddenly, without getting a raise or a bonus or even a birthday card with an extra $20 inside of it, I had money to save!

I completed Baby Step One in the Ramsey Total Money Makeover plan (That Guy loaned the book to me): $1,000 in the bank for an emergency fund.  I came back from lunch with my deposit slip and had to resist the urge to tape it to my forehead and walk around the office.  I felt a weight I hadn't even known was there had been lifted from my shoulders.  And only a few weeks after completing this step, on the way to Washington D.C. at Christmas, both of my front tires blew out on the interstate, first one, then the other, eighty miles apart.  Never mind the hassle of trying to find somebody to come out and give roadside assistance on Christmas Day, never mind the feelings of ill-omen starting a vacation this way, I was absolutely dying thinking about how I was going to pay for it.  That Guy would have to loan me the money, which would put stress on our relationship and throw it out of balance.  Or my parents would have to give it to me, which would make me feel small and worthless and like a giant loser again.

And then I remembered:  I had the money.  This was an emergency, and I had an emergency fund.  It took me a full twenty minutes to remember that money was there, but when I did, it changed everything about the situation.  We were blessed to find somebody to come out and help us, and we were doubly blessed that he actually gave us a deal rather than use the holiday and the urgency to rip off a couple of out-of-towners.  (You'd better bet I lit candles and prayed for him that following Sunday at Mass)  When the second tire blew (and, believe it or not, I actually laughed when it did.  What else could I do?  It was unbelievable!), we were blessed to have spare tire, to find a reasonably priced, comfortable hotel nearby, and to find a locally-owned tire place nearby the next morning, which gave us an even better deal than the man had on Christmas Day and put more air in our flat donut.  (They also got candles and prayers on Sunday.)

My point?  Life happens.  And when you're prepared for it, curses turn into blessings.  Take my word for it.

But the emergency find is only Step One, and I'd say that, of the pre-debt steps, it's the easiest.  The hardest?  I'm in it now.  Two words: Debt. Snowball.

The Ramsey debt snowball is intense.  If you do it right, it consumes your life, though I'd say it's less like a wildfire and more like a giant blanket.  The debt is the wildfire.  The Debt snowball is the thing that smothers it.  And I have wrapped myself up in my debt snowball like a human burrito.  It's all I think about some days.  I pinch every penny I can in order to have more dollars to throw at my debt.  I find that I don't even enjoy the things I used to fritter away my money on (though I will again someday when I'm debt-free) because I can't stop thinking about how much sooner I could pay off my car or my student loans if I hadn't gone to Starbucks. 

Ramsey would refer to me as a Nerd.  I love doing my budget, I live for the days I can enter an extra payment into my debt payoff calculator and see a month or two (or three, or four) get knocked off at once.  But I've actually started to think of myself a little bit differently.  I prefer to refer to myself as a Ramseynista.

Back when I reviewed books, I started getting a lot of self-help and lifestyle books that used the word "Recessionista."  It's a term that sprang up around 2009 or 2010, and it describes a stylish, fashionable young woman (a former "Fashionista") who's learned how to cut corners due to the Recession while still remaining stylish and fashionable.  I kind of resented the term, because, as a broke chick, I'd pretty much always had to cut corners.  I certainly didn't feel sorry for (or inspired by) the girls who "learned" that they could buy Marc Jacob bags and Christian Louboutin shoes on consignment and only spend $200 or $300 on the merchandise instead of full price!

But I did give them kudos for the branding.  "Recssionista" was a great, memorable word, one that the media picked up on.  But it seemed to me that the recessionistas were simply biding their time until they could afford to ditch the consignment shops and go back to the mall.  They were discovering clever little ways to beat the system while the system was obviously broken while still maintaining the appearance of the lifestyle.  And that wasn't me.

But I am a Ramseynista, 100%.  My favorite dates with my boyfriend are the Thursday evenings after RCIA when we do my budget together.  I may not have a Louis Vuitton bag that I only paid $500 for on eBay, but I have an emergency fund and the peace of mind that comes with it.  I might not have a shiny Macbook Pro (yet), but, go ahead, ask to see my biweekly budget projections for the next six months; it'll blow your mind.  I may not have a sporty little car, but I have a great car that will be paid off in full by my next birthday, and it will be the last car payment I ever have.  I like clothes and purses and shoes, but I love anticipating 401(k) and investments earning statements.  I love knowing that there is no reason, apart from just not giving a rip, that my kids won't be able to afford college, that I won't be able to afford to retire at 65, that my life will be one in which money is a tool and a blessing, not a burden and a curse. 

In order for something to change your life, you have to let it.  Embrace the Ramseynista within.  It's worth all the sacrifice, I promise, and my light at the end of the tunnel is currently just a pin-prick.  If you want to see some truly amazing things from some Ramseynistas who've gotten out of their tunnels, visit DaveRamsey.com. (Link opens in new window.)

Later, gators, and God bless.