Once you’re done with the credit card debt, do you think you’ll save with the same intensity, or kind of level out?

Janalyn asked: I think we have some similar ideas, but my life is kind of opposite: I’m a married 20-something done with school (thankfully with only a few thousand in student loans), with 2 car payments and now a mortgage. We only have huge pieces of debt (2 cars totaling about $22K, $6K left in student loans, and now $118K in a mortgage even after our 10% down payment. In our case, we pay double the minimum on the student loans and round up to the nearest 50 mark on the cars and mortgage.  My question is, what do you recommend for people in this type of situation?

I just feel like even with Dave Ramsey’s gazelle intensity, our debt items won’t go away quickly. We are throwing most energy into saving (I really want to be a SAHM), so we’re saving a little more than 20% of our combined income each month for that to be possible in the near future. Sometimes, (esp. around the DR followers) I feel guilty for not putting more toward the debt, I just feel like we’re already paying more than required, so I’m okay with spreading it all out instead of focusing on one thing to get rid of. So once you’re done with the credit card debt, do you think you’ll save with the same intensity, or kind of level out?

Dave Ramsey is really useful for encouraging people to get out of debt and to do it in the most straightforward way possible, but I won’t follow him to the ends of the earth.  To answer your question, I do plan to save with gazelle-like intensity for a while (a year or until I can’t do it anymore, whichever comes first), but not long-term and I won’t be attacking my student loans, at least immediately, with the same intensity.  As Dave says himself, most of the people he helps are out of debt in 12-16 months, which is a reasonable amount of time to be all crazy about debt reduction.  My journey out of credit card debt falls under that time frame and I advocate people getting out of credit card debt as fast as possible, but with huge student loans (like my own) or a mortgage, it’s not going to happen.

You have to set your own priorities and with making my debt public like this, I do worry that people will judge me for making certain decisions, but I don’t worry about it too much, because a). They probably don’t care as much as I think they do, and b). I earned the money and I can decide what to do with it. I wouldn’t let Dave Ramsey die hards make you feel guilty for making careful, thought-out decision on what to do with your own money.

If I was in your shoes, I might be all gazelle-like about the student and car loans.  You might be surprised by how quickly you can be done with them.   But if being a SAHM is a bigger priority, then you should go for that.  This whole process has resulted in a major attitude change for me about money.  I used to think that dreams and doing what you want were more important than money and now I realize that if you take care of the money, it can help you live the way you want and pursue your dreams.  If being a SAHM  is what you want to do, then do with your money whatever will help you get there.  But, this is just my non-expert, personal opinion advice.  Sounds like you already know what you’re doing.  Thanks for reading Janalyn!