Dave: “Unless you’re talking about an emergency situation, home improvements would fall into the category of wants, not needs...these things need to wait until after you’ve completed the first three Baby Steps...Baby Step 1 means saving up $1,000 in the bank for a starter emergency fund. Baby Step 2 is paying off all debts except for your home...”
Dear Dave: You’re getting on my nerves. Guess what? A house you can’t pay for is a want, not a need. Should I go a hundred thousand into debt and congratulate myself for having stashed away one thousand?
“The third Baby Step is going back to your emergency fund and building it up so you have an amount equal to three to six months of expenses in case something goes wrong.”
What could go wrong, Dave? A fifteen or thirty year mortgage, and you think six months of income is a nice cushion, really?
It’s amazing how people hold, as unquestioned articles of faith, the ideas they hold at such ponderous expense. College for the kids, trophy house they can’t pay for. Many of these same people will tell you they’re preppers, too. They swear the country’s going to collapse into a Hobbes-Bosch-Obamaland nightmare, but they keep hocking their souls to buy a stake in the American Dream.
Dave, boardwalk gypsies give better advice than you!
Be careful! Telling the truth like that is dangerous.
Having $1000 in the bank is better than having nothing in the bank.
Having 3-6 months is better than having $1000.
Paying off student loans, credit cards, car payments, etc, so you have fewer monthly expenses increases your ability to better provide for you and yours.
Freegards,