Starting a business can be a scary step, but it doesn’t have to derail your plans to live debt free. With planning and hard work it can help you meet your financial goals and give you the experience of doing something you love and turning it into something that earns an income.

Get support

I didn’t just start my photography business on a whim. I spent a lot of time in prayer about it. I talked it over with my husband and some close friends. I read a lot, naturally (because that’s what I do) about business and marketing. It basically came down to this: keep taking pictures as a hobby and posting them on my blog or start a business, a serious step that would take time away from my family, therefore need to provide income. I had the support of my husband and kids and felt like (without hearing a message from a burning bush) that this was the direction God wanted me to take.

Begin debt free

When I made the decision to step out of my comfort zone and start my business, I began to put things in place to help me run it. I had a little sum of money saved up from some writing I did, and the income I make through ads on my blog. This money helped me to pay for my website, hosting, theme and hire someone to design my brand. It was important to me to start my business debt free and keep it that way.

A few months into it, my first camera, the Canon Rebel, had a break down. It was still under warranty, but I was going to be without it for at least 8 weeks. I was put into my first debt temptation: buy a nicer camera for my business or use the $700 I had saved in my business account and buy the best I could used. I fought the temptation and found a Canon 40d (a step up from the Rebel) on ebay for $600. I’m still using that camera and it turned out to be a smart purchase. I also try to keep at least a thousand dollars in my business account for emergencies, but whenever I get to 2, or 3 thousand, I reinvest in the business. I have added two new lenses this way.

Have a business plan

Knowing where you’re going will help you get where you want to be. Eventually, I want to do more than just reinvest in my business. I’d like to put my earnings towards our 6 months emergency income, family vacations and a few other ideas we have. I sat down with paper and a calculator in the beginning and figured up how many clients I thought I could handle per month, how much I wanted to make per year and did some calculations to get me to a number I needed to make per client to reach that goal. I knew I didn’t want to be too busy. I still have to educate, feed, clothe and spend time with my four children. I still want plenty of family time with my husband on weekends. Those things factor into my pricing, which steadily climbs as I work towards meeting my goal.

Enjoy the journey

For now, my business hasn’t really changed our financial journey. It didn’t put us into more debt or help move us toward being debt free (yet). We are still working on paying off our last debt, one vehicle, and are getting very close to reaching that goal. Using Dave Ramsey’s financial concepts for my business have really helped me stay on track. As with all things in life, running your business is not a race, it’s a journey. It can feel like you need to have all the best equipment, the perfect website and tons of clients right when you begin. But you don’t. Each client I’ve had I’ve felt like they were especially chosen for me and sent to me by God. I have made new friends and learned so much along the way and I anticipate the journey ahead.

Have you ever know someone who is a Christian and yet they never take their kids to church or teach them about Jesus? I have and it always makes me wonder, how could you have this wonderful, life-changing knowledge and not want to share it with your kids?

The same could be said for teaching your kids about money. How many grown people do you know who think they should still get to eat and shop even if they don’t work? I do eventually want my kids to leave the nest, and I want them to do it on their own power, not the government’s.

I had read in Dave’s book, The Total Money Makeover, about giving your kids envelopes for Spend, Save and Give and helping them divide up their money accordingly. We have been doing this, but one thing I learned in the most recent lesson in our Financial Peace University class was about how they should earn this money, and it has totally changed how I do things around here.

I have tried many charts, systems and methods for chores and all of them have failed either on my end (not keeping up with it or checking behind them) or on their end (not doing what was required or not checking it off the list). We have given allowance, not given allowance, forgotten to pay allowance and I’ve been frustrated at my own inconsistency. But, as I listened to Dave talk last Sunday, I worked out a new system in my head and came home excited to implement it.

This week we started commission jobs. I posted a list of all jobs they can do for pay and hung it on the fridge. Things like clean the living room that used to be an assigned paid job is now a choice for commission. Each day they can choose to do one or several of the listed jobs and, when they do it, they write their name in the box on the corresponding day. For each job they get 25 cents.

Some other jobs include: unloading dishes, folding laundry, mopping, sweeping, cleaning windows, cleaning out the van and vacuuming.

Only 25 cents? Slave wages, you say? Maybe so, but I have 4 kids to pay (well 2 1/2 right now, but they’re getting older every day) and one highly motivated worker. This chart has the potential to release as much as $50 a month out of my pocket. But let me tell you, it works!

My house has been cleaner all week than it has been in a long while. The kids are motivated by this chart. I’m not sure if it’s having the freedom to choose what chores they do, how many and when, or the prompt payment (I’ve been paying them daily—works best for me).

They don’t get paid for everything. Keeping their room and bathroom clean are top priorities and must be done without payment. I use Meredith’s popscicle stick method for keeping track of this, and if I don’t see the colored end sticking up, they don’t get to play wii. Furthermore, if I check their room at bedtime and it’s a mess, they lose their commission pay for the day.

Also, Milo usually only gets 50 cents per day just for being obedient and doing the chores I ask him to do (and doing his reading lesson—don’t judge me).

They are still managing their money by using giving, saving an spending categories and, they have discovered, they really like to save!

Dave always says changing the way you deal with money can change your family tree. It sure is nice to see it at work.

We’ve got corn coming in from the garden now and a friend gave me a sack of corn. Today I blanched and cut off all the corn my kids couldn’t eat for lunch.This is just the beginning. Later this summer, my dad will bring me two big bags of corn that will need to be shucked, blanched and put up for winter.

While I was working on the corn, and trying to finish school with the kids, the baby was whining at my feet and my house was steadily becoming a disaster area. She was following me around whining because isn’t that what always happens when you’re trying to do more than one thing? A squeaky wheel shows up.

A squeaky wheel with sad eyes.

And I wondered, why do we do this? Why do we put up food for the winter from a garden when you can buy it all from Kroger? Why do we do all this extra work when it’s easier to buy it in a can? We do it because we know we’ll be hungry for it again. We’ll be hungry for the taste of fresh summer food. And some of us do it because it saves us money.

Speaking of saving money.

What if your husband lost his job? What if you had a major medical event? Do you have enough saved to get you through those rough times?

When we read the Total Money Makeover we found out the first baby step is to save up $1000 ($500 if you make under 20,000 per year). We already had that step done, but I loved what he had to say about having this cushion between you and an emergency. It makes sense. Now, $1000 doesn’t seem like that much, but if you need new tires, if your brakes go out, if your child needs to go to the emergency room, that $1000 is there to give you peace.

After you pay off all your debt, you save some more. Baby step 3 is to save 3-6 months of living expenses. This, to me, is huge. We’ve never had that much in savings and when we do, I will feel real financial peace.

It’s not easy to save, and it’s nearly impossible when you put all your money in the spend pile. For us, what works is having my husband’s check direct deposited with some money going directly to savings and some money going directly to our tithing account. These funds are taken off the top first, that way we never see them. We never group them with our spend money and it’s much easier to forget about that saving pile and let it grow.

Why save? Because you will be hungry. It will rain. Rainy days happen to everybody. The only difference between you and everybody else is that you’ll have an umbrella.

I anticipated writing this installment early in April. I knew I’d have good news to share by then and it just seemed like the perfect time to tell you the rest of the story. But…

When I left off last time, I shared that a friend had given us a suggestion that re-inspired us to dig in our heels and get excited about paying off our debt (again), specifically our van. The suggestion was to stop contributing to retirement.

This suggestion, at first, was not something I even wanted to consider. I love to have a big pile of savings somewhere hidden away, and the retirement savings is the perfect place for it. It’s hard to get to, it automatically comes out of the paycheck and there’s a penalty if you touch it. All the more reason to leave it alone and let it grow.

But, if we temporarily stopped contributing, not touching what was already in that pile, and threw that extra money at paying off the van, we figured up we could have the van paid for in 3 months.

That was such a huge incentive, we decided to do it. In fact, we decided to keep it going until the truck was paid off as well.

We started off strong. More than doubling up on our van payment was dwindling that payment down fast. It was exciting to be so close to a big payoff.

However, things began to get in the way. New glasses for the kid who’s eyes got worse, medical expenses and most recently, a $500 brake job on the van.

April came and went and we were still not quite there. I was disappointed and not feeling like writing about it.

We will make our last van payment this month. Finally.

Our church is starting the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University this month, and at first, I wasn’t sure we needed to attend. We’d read the book and were working the steps. However, I think the encouragement and accountability will be good for us.

On Dave Ramsey’s television show he often asks the callers what kept their momentum going through the hard times. Most of the time the answer is staying focused on the goal and the reward each time they pay off a debt.

By our estimation, in two years we will be debt free (except for the house). Two years isn’t that long. Staying focused on that goal helps, but having friends who are on the same journey have helped even more.

What helps keep you focused on your financial goals?

February, 2009

“I’m going to sell my truck.”

When I heard my husband say these words I knew he was finally on board with the Total Money Makeover plan. He had been reading Dave’s book on his own and we had started watching Dave’s show together.

At first the baby steps seemed a little too easy. We had our $1000 emergency fund, we did not have credit card debt and we had some extra savings in stocks.

I was ready to buckle down and throw as much money as we could toward our vehicles to get them paid for. I wasn’t expecting my husband to be so committed that he’d want to sell his new Toyota truck, and I wasn’t sure I wanted him to.

I tried to talk him out of it. I was afraid he’d sell it and regret it and get into another buy and sell cycle, but he was convinced this would move us more quickly toward our goal. Dave was right, gazelle intensity had gotten a hold of my husband.

He cleaned it up and put a for sale sign on it. After two months of many calls and lots of looking, he tried another direction and got a good offer at a dealership. They offered him more than what he was asking for, and he cashed in stock to pay the difference on what we owed. Then he bought a new Dodge truck.

To tell the truth, I was concerned. It seemed smarter to buy something used that we could pay cash for, or just live with one vehicle for a while until we could get the van paid for. But I was trying to reform the controlling, nagging wife I used to be, so I let it be his decision. It sort of seemed like this journey was going to be as much about me learning to trust my husband as the leader of our family as it was for us to be financially free.

We still had two vehicles financed, but we had a lower monthly payment on his new truck and saved $6,000 in the end.

At this point, I expected things to go smoothly. I honestly believed we would easily be able to pay off the van that year. Instead, bonus cuts and fewer weekend workdays dramatically cut our income. Looking back now, I can see the blessings that kept us afloat.

At the time of our church’s Faith Promise Giving commitment we decided to double what we’d given last year. As our preacher likes to say, “You can’t out give God.” Here’s some of the goodness we enjoyed that year: