Step 0: Create a written budget

Dave Ramsey talks about seven “baby steps” to financial freedom. You need to crawl before you can walk. Walk before you run. There is no quick way out of debt and no quick way to become wealthy.

I learned the hard way about “get rich quick” schemes. I fell for these scams and my bank account was drained as a result. “Work three hours a week and make millions.” This is very unrealistic, but I was a sucker for this in my younger years. Nobody gets rich by working only three hours a week. People make six figure incomes by working hard, not hardly working.

Before I go into the baby steps let me first discuss a tool that everyone should be doing, creating a budget. This is crucial to eliminating debt and building wealth. For this reason I am calling this step 0. Making your money work for you is what a budget is all about.

This is also something that should be done every month. Would you build a house without a blueprint? Hopefully you said no. The same idea goes for wealth. You cannot build wealth without a written plan.

April and I create a budget every month that we both agree on. This part was not easy at first, but I assume the same goes for most couples. Once our budget is made, we stick to it. That is the most important part. Without focus the budget is just a piece of paper.