Personal Finances

[Jason Huggins]

Good Evening Bigger Pockets,

     My wife, and I have twice saved the capitol it will take to purchase our first property. However, as soon as we manage to save it, an "emergency" would deplete our resources. This has lead me to concentrate on our personal finances this year, and to realize that we have already over leveraged ourselves personally. 

     We are currently making great strides in eliminating our personal debt; However, this means another year and a half of soul crushing waiting on the sidelines. Does anyone have encouragement, suggestions, or opinions?

[Dell Schlabach]

Dave Ramsey would tell you to have an emergency fund to handle emergencies.

You dont want your spend your emergency fund a a down payment on a property, if you do and then you have a family emergency and a rental property "emergency" such as a furnace going out you are in double trouble. 

To sort out and manage personal finances I would suggest finding a ramsey class near you.

http://www.daveramsey.com/fpu/classfinder/?ectid=g...

The waiting game is never fun but getting in over your head can be much more painful. If you have a clear vision of what you want, and you have a budget, and savings plan. If you can review that every month and see that you are making progress and getting closer to the goal, it makes it easier then if you dont hjave a monitoring system to see if you are on track.

Have you decided what you want to do, buy a rental? flip a house? buy a duplex to live in rent the other side? 

The only thing I know that works is to have a clear goal, objective, make a clear plan, then decide what the steps are that you need to take to get there. Then work like crazy to get there as fast as you can. Work harder, work longer, get a raise, get a higher paying job, get an extra job, do some freelance work, get side jobs, save more money, eat out less, cut all expenses to a minumum are all ways to save faster. 

But never never never give up on your dreams!