I am re-reading his book, and DH is turning the bills over to me in 2008.

We have NO emergency fund (started awhile back and used it for car repairs). I know this is first.

My question is this, I am returning to work as a bartender. I will work one night a week, maybe 2. I will get $5 an hour, on a paycheck. I will bring home cash tips. I know I should put it all toward the EF. Once that is established, I am wondering if any of you work for tips, or cash where you cannot say what you'll make? I have made as little as $6 on a night in bad weather and gone home early, to making over $500!

I'm not sure how to add this money to our budget, do I just 'snowball' it to add to the payment we are trying to knock down that month? I'd like to save a percentage toward starting next year's Christmas fund, would this be wrong and defeat the purpose of Dave's plan??? I am only on page 3 of re reading his book, THANKS!

If this money is not needed to meet your household budget then I wouldn't add it to the budget at all.

Just add it directly to the EF and then once that is at $1K then snowball it into any debt reduction.

Me - I didn't save any $$ for X-mas, I just used a portion of my snowball money in Dec for gifts and sent in a smaller snowball payment this past month. I didn't want to save money that would be doing a better job in knocking down future interest payments over the course of the year.

DR is great and has a great plan, but we have all tweaked the program a bit to fit our own needs. Mine - I have $2K in my EF, but that is just something I'm more comfortable with.

Now once debt is gone as well as the FFEF is in place, then I will set up a freedom account for sinking funds on car registration, X-,mas gifting, etc.


Best of luck to you

We all have tweaked it, that's right. DH and I aren't Gazelle Intense, but we are loosely following it and it is helping our efforts either way. Reason being, we aren't up to our eyeballs in debt, drowning in it, nor are we at risk of losing things like our home or cars due to non payment. The money I make every month is more than sufficient for our mortgage and car payments and other bills, plus a little leftover to save. The money DH made this year went to pay off our credit cards, our furniture, and our appliances that bit the dust that were replaced. All of that totaled almost $20K in itself, and all in all we paid off right at $30K in total debts this year. So, what he makes goes to knock down our debts (even though some of the money I made was also allocated to those debts, his just snowballed it a LOT faster!).
But where we would differ with dave in the order of things is this....we plan on having children in the next year or two, so what I'd like to do is go ahead and fully fund our emergency fund for as much as we can before we do have kids, so that in case anything bad happens (knock on wood), we will have cash to pay for it. This is instead of snowballing our car debts and getting those knocked out. Those payments are comfortable for us right now, and even though most people would cringe at it, we hardly notice they are even there. Then, once our ffef is funded, we will snowball those again.
I hope this all makes sense.
DH and I have had a huge eye opening experience in reading dave's book, and definitely are on the right track to changing our futures forever.
To answer your question though, if I were you, I'd take that money (no matter if it's $6 or $500 and put it towards your next months snowball payment, every little bit helps! Or if you have a realllly good month, save a little something for yourself to have fun with, it really helps with the motivation factor of it all. And no, I don't think it would be wrong with dave's plan to go ahead and save some for next christmas...like I said, it all depends on your debt "comfort level" to me, if you are drowning and on the verge of bankruptcy, NO, do not save the extra for christmas, GET OUT OF THAT MESS, and THEN worry about Christmas....otherwise, set it aside....it's what I would do.
Good luck! It's so nice to tally up a years worth of payments and realize how much you CAN SAVE when you don't have those debts anymore.

No, we are not drowning in debt so I do not plan on cutting out cable, or anything like that. We need more discipline basically. And the savings. With only one income (we don't really count what I make as income, hmmm...part of the problem?) I want to have a 6 month savings to fall back on in case DH were to be unemployed. We also need to save for college, which I know is NOT supposed to be done right away. It isn't that we are at risk of losing anything, but we are not prepared for anything bad to happen from a car repair to unemployment.

We are sitting down tonight to look it all over together. Thanks!

My husband and I worked in restaurants for over fifteen years each. When we got serious about knocking out our debt and following a budget, here's what we did: 1. Close every shift. Even if you're a newbie, ask the regular closers if you can close for them. Eventually you'll get a reputation for being available to close and people will come to you. You can more than double your earnings each night you close, plus add (meager) hourly wages to your check. 2. Account for your tips every night in a ledger. This helps with tax preparation and helps you see how much you actually made. Without keeping track, all that cash has a tendency to just slip away. 3. Pick up extra shifts and put all tips toward your debt snowball. If you're working a slow Monday night, knowing that what you make could knock out one more bill will keep you working hard with a smile on your face...every tip brings you closer to freedom! Good luck! I think restaurant jobs are fabulous--where else can you (legally) make upwards of $25 an hour and be able to pick up extra shifts or take a day off whenever you want, all without any need for formal training or education?