Random Question…How many of you know a friend (or maybe even yourself) who listens to Dave Ramsey? Who loves his advice and follows it religiously?

I remember hearing his name everywhere, and so I went out and bought one of his programs. I remember listening to it and feeling nothing but misery. I had over $25,000 in credit card debt (though I didn’t see it that way, I saw it then, and still do, as a business investment). I also had over $90,000 in student loan debt at the time. His solution, I remember, was to live on beans and rice, never take a vacation, budget things to the exact penny, and do a lot of other things I DID NOT WANT TO DO. He wants me to be thrifty? He wants me not to buy that Starbucks and save all the money from it which will make me thousands of dollars in 50 years? He wants me to track everything and not go over a certain amount for certain things EVERY month? Why doesn’t he just take away my entire reason for living? (drama major over here!)

*****In all fairness to Dave Ramsey, he is a GENIUS at what he does and his advice is amazing and has helped SO MANY PEOPLE, but it just wasn’t a system that I wanted to follow. *****

Putting me on a budget is one of the worst things I can imagine. I hate it. It’s almost like taking someone and putting them on an extreme diet and then all they want to do is binge. I have pretty normal spending habits, but once I introduce a strict budget, I get crazy impulses to fly first class to Paris and stay at the GEORGE V hotel…in the suite!

After listening to his program and hearing yet ANOTHER friend talk about how amazing he was,  I remember having a different thought, “Hey D’Arcy, why don’t you just earn enough money so you can pay off all your debt, AND travel, AND eat at nice restaurants, AND have a home in Utah and an apartment in New York City (something he would HIGHLY advise me against, I know!)

And that’s exactly what I did. I decided to just make more than enough money to pay off my investments (what some would call “debt”) in a respectable amount of time and still have enough to have the things that I wanted. Truly, having freedom around money has been one of the MOST exciting things about owning my own business!