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Our Financial Peace Journey

If you are new around these parts, the Mister and I took the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University course through our church at the end of 2015. We have a goal to knock out the remainder of our consumer debt in 2017. You can catch up on our journey by checking out our previous recaps:

• May 2017 update
• April 2017 update
• March 2017 update
• February 2017 update
• January 2017 update
• December 2016 update
• November 2016 update
• October 2016 update
• September 2016 update
• August 2016 update
• July 2016 update
• June 2016 update
• May 2016 update
• March/April 2016 update
• February 2016 update
• January 2016 update
• December 2015 update
• weekly FPU updates

June Budget & Challenges

June started as a pretty boring budget month. No major expenses on the horizon except for my state convention and the Mister’s birthday weekend, which included a trip to Charleston. My trip was covered by the business, and we planned to stay with a friend and go to the beach as a birthday celebration.

Of course, Murphy’s law dictates a curveball at this point.

Challenge number one: The day before I was supposed to leave for my conference, the Mister’s check-engine light and several sensor lights started flashing in the car. Luckily, our awesome mechanic looked the car over right away, but as a precaution, I made arrangements for another conference attendee to pick me up on his way to Charleston so that the Mister could use my car.

It turns out that the car needs a new catalytic converter, which we’ve arrange to be installed next week. This is why we have an emergency fund.

Challenge number two: I picked up tax returns up from our accountant this month, and we owe Uncle Sam about $3000 more than we have saved, due by the end of the month.

I look at unexpected taxes in the same way as unexpected medical bills. The money isn’t there so we add it to the debt snowball. Here is where we deviate from Dave Ramsey – we put the expense on a credit card. Because at the end of the day, I would always rather owe Visa than the IRS.

Also, I chatted with the accountant about why the tax bill has jumped so much in the last two years – a major business deduction expired. As a result, we designed a better savings goal to avoid this problem for 2017 income taxes.

Challenge number three: Have you a vessel bleed in your eye? It looks disgusting, and treatment is expensive. Let’s just say that between the doctor visit and eye drops, that’s $150 gone within a couple hours. Thank goodness for health insurance and our health savings account.

June Victories & Blessings

Okay, after all those challenges, let’s talk about victories.

As you can see, we rocked the extra income this month. In fact, the extra income completely covers what we owed the state of South Carolina in taxes. Also, money is sitting in the bank to take care of that car repair scheduled for next week.

Of all the June challenges, only the tax question because remotely stressful. I don’t even know if I would describe the conversation as “stressful”. It was more of a decision about what to do and how to avoid the problem in the future. After paying the federal bill, we decided to throw the tax savings account at the debt snowball. So we’ve paid off the lowest item

So we’ve paid off the lowest item on the snowball and 70 percent of the next item, which we expect to knockout in July.