Our Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover Testimony

A True Story by Courtney Lanz, RN BSN, Stay-at-Home Mom-want to be

I grew up in your modern day, working class family. My father was a self-employed
carpenter until his early 40s. At that point, he had his mid-life crisis (if you will),
and went to college to become a registered nurse. He knew that his carpenter
business, passed down to him by his father, was not enough to take care of a family
of six. So, he chose a career that has been known for stability and decent pay. He had
always wanted to go to college after he finished college, but due to the area in which
we lived, there was no encouragement from the culture and there was particularly a
large amount of ignorance about the advantages of college from his family. He also
had always wanted to become a minister, but due to a broken spirit by members of
his childhood church and again, the lack of education and encouragement, he never
followed his calling. I remember him to always be in the corncrib, a small wooden
shack 100 yards from our house, when he wasnt working. He would be in that
shack memorizing verses or writing Christian songs that he, my mother, and his
children could sing at the neighboring churches. At some point before he went to
nursing school, he started taking online well, internet wasnt really a thing back
then so, I guess, distance learning from Liberty University for a bachelors in
ministry. He spent a long time taking classes for this and finally gained his
bachelors, which was followed later by a Masters in Discipleship. Fun fact, he
graduated with his Masters when my husband, brother, and I graduated college with
our bachelor degrees. Anyway, while my father was in nursing school for those two
years, he worked as a nurses aid during nights, went to school during the day, and
worked small carpenter jobs on the weekends. We never missed church; by golly we
were there when those doors were open. My father was also youth pastor/music
minister/stand-in preacher all throughout my teenage years. He was always willing
to do some type of ministry even though he never received the gratitude or thanks
that he deserved. Of course, due to our constant circumstances of having no money
and having a father that worked more than we saw him, my siblings and I did not
have the means of receiving an educational savings account. The amount of money
that they were able to contribute to the college fund consisted of the gas that it took
to drive us there. My father believes he became the failure he never wanted to be.
Hence begins my story.
My dream was to travel abroad during college, followed by becoming a stay at home
mom. My mother was a stay-at-home mom who was a full time housewife, full time
homeschool teacher, family secretary, piano teacher, and a full time mother. We
never went to daycare and we never had a babysitter. We never went to school, but
we never missed out on gymnastics, basketball, softball, soccer, theatre, community
volunteer work, youth group, art class, and field trips. I never respected my
mothers ability to do all of these things until I became a mother myself. I looked
down on her because of her inability to help dad by working to pay the bills so that
way he wasnt so beaten down by all of the weight of debt. I was so angry that he
could be made to feel like such a failure when he was literally doing everything he
could to provide for our family. Through this, I saw the importance of having the
ability to work alongside my future husband, so I went to college for a degree,
although I never really wanted to work outside of the home. Of course, I would have
gone to college anyway because my father probably wouldve had a heart attack if I
didnt. Like everyone at that age, I didnt know what I wanted to be or what I wanted
to do with my life (career-wise). Spanish and music were my first two choices, but I
didnt want to be a teacher, translator, or musician. So, I became a nurse because I
knew it was a stable job that paid well and there was a lot of future in nursing. Its
funny how youll swear up and down that you wont ever do something, but end up
doing it anyway. I somehow chose the worst nursing school that has ever existed
and began my journey into the black abyss of student loan debt. I married a man
who already had student loan debt and brought him to school with me, so that he
would have a better degree and more student loan debt. We married after our
freshman year and spent the next three years in nursing school together. There
were perks of being married while both students. We both received the highest
amount from the state grants and we were eligible for plenty of loans. So, overall, we
received more scholarships and grants than what we received as single students,
which made me feel like the super smart one who was almost cheating the system.
However, even with the extra grant money, I still had to take out the full amount of
loans that I could receive because my husband didnt receive enough grants and
loans to pay for his yearly tuition for these three years. We lived on $8,000 per year.
We lived in the married housing at the university that was paid for by our loans,
which was cheaper than room and board for two as single students, but still, we
knew wed be paying for our housing down the road. During the summers, we split
our time at our parents house: 45 days here, 45 days there. My husband worked as
a surgical tech at the hospital and I worked at grocery stores and gas stations part-
time. We saved all summer and used that money to make it through the fall
semester, then I did our taxes in January, and we lived off of our tax return through
the spring semester. My husband never really had a break because on our school
breaks, he would work at the hospital. I picked up cleaning jobs and teaching guitar
lessons here and there. There was one point in our senior year that we applied for
food stamps, which somehow we didnt qualify for even though we were $12,000
below poverty. We only applied for it because nursing school was too time-
consuming to work a part-time job, and they continued to cut the hours of the part-
time jobs that we held on-campus. We made it through though without ever asking
anyone for money. We never took out a single credit card. We paid cash for
everything. I reworked the budget weekly. We were always on a budget. We
shopped at Aldis and Kroger for groceries. We shopped at Goodwill and the sales
racks at the mall, whenever we really needed something, or whenever we had
money leftover in the budget. I still wonder how we made it on that income and
stayed happily married. We clung to each other and trusted God to bring us through.
The summer after we graduated, I fervently read Dave Ramsey: The Total
Money Makeover. Before college, I read the notes of my parents while they took the
Financial Peace University class. During college, I took the class Financial Peace
University for college students. I highlighted, took notes, rewrote budget after
budget, and swore to myself that as soon as we started working, we were going to
pay off our school debt as soon as we possibly could. I spent hours on this project,
like it was a full-time job. When we were accepted into our first RN positions, I built
a budget based on our take home pay so that I knew what apartment we could
afford and what our new lifestyle would be based on my husbands income. My
income would go to paying off our school debt. I used all of the methods in Ramseys
book. It was going to work. We were going to be debt free. We were going to
continue living like no one else so that we could later live like no one else. Neither
of our families believed in our power to do this, which fueled my fire even more
intensely. I was going to be that gazelle that Dave Ramsey talked about.
We paid off our smallest loan within four months and paid cash for the most
beautiful red LG washer and dryer when our scratch and dent washer-dryer combo
broke. We paid off a quarter of our second smallest loan and paid cash for a new
MAC computer because our old laptop broke. We paid the maximum amount that we
were able to pay on our loans with our budget every month.
Then, I became pregnant. My husband said that we could start trying to have
a baby during the fall after we graduated as long as we both had jobs and insurance.
So, we announced our pregnancy that Christmas. I had never been so happy because
I had waited since our marriage (3.25 years) to start making babies and become the
mommy that I wanted to be. When our precious little girl was born, I put our
biggest loans on forbearance because we had lost my income during the months of
maternity leave, plus gained a mortgage. We put $4850 down on our new home that
I had to have. I refused to raise my children in an apartment and after 3.25 years of
living in apartments, my stubbornness intensified this refusal. So, we gained a
mortgage and the desire to fill our home with stuff. We paid cash for a guest room
mattress, a bedroom suite for ourselves, and other small pieces of used and new
furniture for our home. We had been living out of containers and those cheap plastic
drawers for 4 years, so we definitely deserved these items. Through this, we
maintained a budget. After having the baby, I dropped my hours to part-time. We
never used childcare except for 2 months when I had to orient to my new position
on dayshift. My husband worked 3 nights a week and I worked 2 nights a week. We
saw each other for basically 1.5 days each week because on the first day, we would
still be catching up on sleep. Our marriage suffered. We had a new home and a new
baby. We had no support because we had no family in the area and we had just
started semi-attending a new church. So, I dropped to PRN. I still usually worked
two days per week, but I did not have to work two days per week. As I slowly started
working less shifts, I found that we were able to save our marriage by simply having
more time to spend together as a family.
When I started working less shifts, we started having less money.
Conveniently, our loans switched providers and became more expensive per month.
With less income, a new baby, more bills, and higher loan payments, we began a new
struggle. The struggle of my parents. The struggle of every other working class
family in America. We were consumed by debt with no room to breathe. In the past
few months, I have read Dave Ramseys book twice. I have scoured the Internet for
ways to save and ways to make a little money on the side. I have spent several hours
every week on our budget. I have been consumed by this overwhelming depression
that we will never be debt-free. What angers me the most is that I could never
compare us to the testimonies of every single person who encountered Dave
Ramsey. Of course you can pay off thousands of dollars in debt in a few months or
few years if youve never lived on a budget before and if youve used your credit
card to your hearts content. Thats where we are different! Weve always lived on a
budget. Weve always been frugal with our money and have always paid cash for
things that weve needed. Weve never had credit card debt out of our selfish desire
to keep up with the Jones. We have always had an emergency fund of $1000.00. Our
savings is what has gotten us through every home repair problem, every raise in a
loan payment, and any hospital bill that wasnt covered by insurance. Weve
snowballed. Weve planned. Weve spent hours trying to rewrite the failures that we
were set up with from the beginning. So, here is our story after two years.
In just these last two years, we have paid $27,000.00 to student loan debt.
Notice I wrote, paid not paid off. We have paid off a grand total of $2115.75 in
student loan debt. Although we have snowballed our money to the smallest loans,
which have been paid off or are quite lower than what they were originally, the
largest of loans have collected so much interest despite our payments, that a
negative was created in the sum total. We actually owe more now on our largest
loans than what we did when we first started paying on them in the beginning. After
calculating the big cash/selfish purchases of the past two years, the total equals
$11,500.00; this includes the down payment for our home.
Sure, we shouldnt have bought a house. We couldve spent less money by
continuing to use the junky hand-me-downs that weve had since we were married.
We could have waited another few years to start a family. We couldve better
budgeted and paid more off before having our baby girl. I couldve continued to
work full-time and chose making money/paying off debt over my marriage.
Im stubborn though and I refuse to live my life without my husband by my
side. I refuse to allow someone else to raise my children. I refuse to move back to an
area that doesnt foster our growth in our careers. I refuse to move back to an area
that doesnt foster a desire to be more in my children. I refuse to let our culture
define how I will raise my family. I will somehow work more hours, but spend more
time with my family. Oh wait. Im pregnant with our second baby. I cant physically
work more hours. Im trying to work more, but Im trying to spend time with my
family. Im exhausted all of the time and I cant give my daughter the attention that
she deserves because all that I want to do is sleep. I rework the budget. I try to make
decent meals with the little grocery money that is left over after paying our bills and
our loans. My husband picks up more shifts and is looking for a second job. I am
becoming consumed with the heaviness of our debt and our means to survive and
provide a good life for our family. I dont want to be a failure. I dont want to live
paycheck to paycheck. I dont want to strictly live by a budget and feel like a loser
whenever someone wants to go out to eat with us and I just want to say, Well, were
poor even though we probably make more money than most. I want a new car. Our
family car has 209,000 miles on it and theres no way I can fit another car seat in
that tiny backseat. Sooner or later, our emergency fund will be used to fix the car
after it breaks down or to buy another vehicle to take its place. Should I put money
towards a new car or should I try to put more money to our debt? What would Dave
Ramsey do?
I want my total money makeover testimony. I want to live like no one else.
Which is more important? Working ourselves to death to get out of debt while were
young or to enjoy our family while theyre young? I want to be free. I dont want my
kids to see their parents as working failures. I want a bright new future for my girls.
I want to put more money per month into my Claires savings and I want to have
money to contribute equally to my newest little girls savings. I dont want them to
ever deal with this despair.
Please, just let us be free. Please America, take my debt away.