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Roof AGAIN? and how it makes me debt free!

So we got a whopping $1573.59 for our roof. Yeah, that doesn't put a dent in the 12k we need! So we have made a different decision entirely. We know we need a new roof eventually. (Just like eventually I will have a million bucks, heh not any time soon!) So we are going to repair the parts that need to be repaired (only about 600 bucks worth or so) and the rest we will put toward our debt. Later we will have to buy a new roof, but 1k isn't going to help us do that.

Instead! We decided we will be debt free! I have my brother in law to thank too, he just got on Dave Ramsey's plan and has been asking us a ton of questions. Some of the stuff we have been doing isn't exactly Dave Ramsey-ish. So he has made us rethink about our intensity to pay off our debt. We have 21k in an emergency fund, along with 12k in a hills and valley fund (my husband is self employed so we use that on the slim months). With the money we just got paid this month, plus the insurance money, we are paying off our #20,585 student loan!! No more beating around the bush, we're paying it off!
So I have to wait for a statement on how much we owe, and then YAY! It's gone!

A new business that isn't anything new

So how come everyone buys and sells on eBay? I do both of course, like every other person on the planet. I buy things like camera batteries and memory cards and small things that I can always find for pretty cheap. I sell the old stuff in my house that I need to get rid of so I can pay off my debt.
But what I really wonder about are those Power Sellers. Those people that seem to have tons of items for so much cheaper than I can find them anywhere. How does that work? I mean I looked up a few things online because I was thinking about doing an eBay business... but I can't seem to find anything that is even worth it! I found tons of liquidations sites etc that you have to buy 30 of something to get the deal, and you can still find it cheaper on eBay!
I am amazing and wonder who these power sellers know to get their great deals!
I knew one person who sold Coach purses on eBay and did pretty well, but he had a friend who worked in distributing Coach so that made it easier for him. Do I need to know someone to get a good deal? Even with the internet are personal relationships grounds for a better price?
Hmm... I wish I had answers!

Podcasts

Staying at home with my son is wonderful but can get somewhat lonely when I'm home all day by myself. I recently started listening to Dave Ramsey's radio show, because I don't want my son to watch TV until he's around 2 years old, so radio works out great!

We have XM radio because my husband travels so much for work, and I record Dave Ramsey. I wanted to listen to something else besides his show (because it only lasts so long without commercials) and I looked for some podcasts.

I found some great podcasts, along with some not so great ones. Here are a couple of the ones that were very well put together and interesting.

Terry Savage Money
http://www.nbc5.com/money/6371520/detail.html

Entrepreneur.com (and magazine) Podcast
http://www.entrepreneur.com/podcast/index.html

An Entrepreneur.podcast with interviews with great people
http://www.venturevoice.com/

New Decisions on the Roof!

My husband and I just decided to not put a new roof on yet. We are going to fix around the chimney where it was leaking a bit but otherwise the roof is A-ok! (besides some missing shingles of course). I don't think insurance is going to give us any money, and I think we should wait until we NEED a new roof. Heck a lot more shingles can fly off before it does damage! (not that I want that to happen of course!)

But that means we are paying more money on the student loan instead of saving for the roof. Yay! I just made a $2,250 payment to the student loan. I forget how good it feels to write a big check to my debt! I still have $18,204 left but I made it under the 20k mark! Woo!!

Our plan so far

We had a baby about 5 months ago. We started Dave Ramsey's plan in March of last year when we found out we were pregnant. I really wanted to be a stay at home mom at that point but I made 2/3rds of the income. (I made about 90k per year and my husband about 50k) We had car loans, student loans, HELOC, and no money in the bank. We had paid off our credit cards that previous year and didn't really use them often, but our monthly expenses were very high. Our house is also 250k, and we put 25k down on it so we owed 225k. We made a point not to get the largest house we could afford because I hated my job and I wanted to quit. Still it never seemed possible to quit!
Once I found out we were pregnant we went crazy on debt. We sold our brand new Honda Civic (19k loan) and bought a $9,000 Jeep Cherokee. We paid off:

Cherokee $9,000
Honda Element $8,000
Citibank Student Loan $3,500
HELOC $25,800
Total = $46,300

That's a lot of debt! We did that from March until August by living only on my husbands salary and him working his butt off to make more money. Oh and living on beans and rice! We still had a $23,000 student loan of mine left, but I was worried about finances when the baby arrived and not having a safety net especially when i was thinking of quitting my job.

I called Dave Ramsey to ask about what I should do. I thought I should save up my fully funded emergency fund for the baby, and then pay off my student loan. Of course that doesn't go with the baby steps but I wanted security! He suggested I pay off my student loan (of course!) then go back to work for a few months until I could get a fully funded emergency fund. We didn't do that though! Sorry for not doing the advice Dave!

We ended up saving over 21k for our emergency fund. It's still in the bank account right now. I did go back to work for a few months and paid off some of the student loan, but I hated having my son in day care and I was sick of working knowing I was going to quit so I left. (We also had been saving and bought a car with cash right before I quit as the Cherokee seemed to have tons of problems and was a gas guzzler).

I know I didn't follow the normal baby steps as I still have debt and an emergency fund but I feel better. Especially with the new roof we need! I also just saved up 12k for a hills and valleys fund because my husbands income varies from month to month and we don't know how much he'll end up making most of the time.

So that has been the plan so far! My goals now are to increase my income, get that roof, and finally pay off that student loan. Then we'll be debt free except for the house! Then we start saving for retirement. I am so excited about that because that is how I plan on becoming a millionaire!

New Roof

We have really high winds at my house. REALLY high winds, like 70 plus miles per hour. We also have two 30 year shingles on our roof. Why two sets of 30 year shingles? Because whoever installed them, installed them both incorrectly. So even though we have two, which sounds likes it's better than one, it's not.
So high winds + incorrectly installed shingles = flying shingles that end up stuck in the ground a few inches. It also means dealing with the insurance company! This has happened twice in a year. So we are getting estimates on a new roof. For shingles that are rated high enough for the high winds we have it will be about $12,800. WOW that's a lot of money.
I have no idea how much the insurance will cover but most likely they will just repair the damage and not give us a new roof. Thank goodness for the emergency fund!!