Differing Tastes: TV in our House

The following post (after the break) was written back in May, and it outlines the differing tastes in tv that my wife and I have.  However, the point of this post is now moot.

Today, I called charter and cancelled our service.  I kept our internet, we will still have Netflix, plus any streaming options we can find to watch on the computer, but tv watching as we have known it is no longer an option.  Since we have our own computers/mobile devices/etc to watch tv on, this entire post is not as relevant to us anymore.

Why did I cut the cord?  The bill increased about 20% from last month to this month.  $65 a month for internet and $75 for tv.  I remember when I was young, watching tv from the floor at my grandparents' house - about once an hour there would be an add for cable TV - Only a dollar a day.  This little kid would run outside, throw a silver dollar up into the air, run inside and sit down to watch TV.  Whatever happened to those days?

The next post will be an update on our debt snowball, as well as an update on our goal for our first anniversary - paying off our car.  The $100 a month we started saving today is going to help make that goal substantially more attainable.

The Money Taboo

One of the hardest part about doing Dave Ramsey is containing the pure joy and excitement we feel every time we pay off a debt or make some other milestone.  The people who care are genuinely excited for us, but those people are few and far between.  More often than not, the response is comprised of raised eyebrows and questioning glares.

Farewell Fiero

This weekend I sold my Fiero.  This car was beautiful.  It was a 1984 2m4, 33,000 original miles.  Bright red.  I bought the car when I was in college and put less than 3,000 miles on it. Here's a picture of it, a parting shot.  I hadn't really driven the car in 5 years, so it was probably time to sell.  Would I have rather kept it?  Yeah.  Sunk money into it for tires and a likely ac repair?  Absolutely.  But when you are getting out of debt you don't do that.  Part of getting out of debt is sacrifice.

Debt Snowball Update

My wife and I started Dave Ramsey's debt snowball in February.  We had returned from the honeymoon in Aruba, and we had unwrapped all our our wedding gifts.  One of our gifts was Dave's book, The Total Money Makeover.  Ironically, we received the book from one of the vendors we used for the wedding.  The people we rented chair covers from gave us the book.  I mean, chair covers.  How much more frivolous can you be?

Anyway, Aleece read the book, and I started listening to Dave everyday on my drive home from work.  We were ready to start our debt snowball on February First and hit the ground running.  Our debt includes (well, included) some left over wedding expenses, credit cards, furniture purchases, student loans, car payment, and our mortgage.  As of May 1st, we have paid off over 10% of our non-mortgage debt! (If you count the mortgage we are at roughly 5%). That might seem like a small amount, but it is huge!  By now we probably would have booked a vacation, bought more furniture or made plans to buy another car - all using debt.  Instead of piling up even more debt, we have taken it down!

Communicating about money has helped add to a solid foundation for our marriage - we are both furiously committed to getting out of debt in order to have the freedom to go on a vacation, or buy a car, or whatever without worrying about the risk.  Yes, 0% financing is great - unless you can't pay the bill and the 0% becomes 36%.  When we are debt free, if one of us were to lose a job, or decide to stay home to raise a family, it would cause zero stress on our lives or on our marriage.  This is just one reason why we both want to live debt free.

Every month I plan on posting with an update on our debt snowball progress until we are DONE!

Wife Tax

The first thing you need to know is that my wife and I are on Dave Ramsey’s program, baby step #2 - the debt snowball.  If you are not familiar, hit the source link.  

The second thing you need to know is that my wife is a graduate assistant, which means she doesn’t have to pay tuition while working on a PhD. YES! AWESOME! HOORAY!  At roughly $1500 per class, this is HUGE!.  

What isn’t huge?  Her salary.  Her take home pay is about $15,000 a year.  The poverty line is where?  Before we got married, she would have qualified for food stamps!  Luckily, I have a job.

In my job as a high school music teacher, I make O.K. money.  I am not one of those teachers that thinks I am drastically underpaid.  My wages are fair.  Fair means that I use a budget and pack a lunch to work and eat leftovers for lunch.  The key word is budget. Before my wife came along and we got on the Dave Ramsey plan, this is what my budget looked like-

Monthly income, minus monthly expenses = roughly zero-ish, maybe more maybe less depending on what movies and xbox games I bought that month.

Now my budget is incredibly detailed.  My wife and I are both nerds.  We each have in-depth spreadsheets outlining every expense and every ounce of income before each month begins.  Over the top? Maybe, but it works for us.

Most importantly, it allows us to get a head and succeed with our debt snowball.

This is where the dirty word comes in.  Tax.