Tough Times Call for Tough Measures: An Experiment in Social and Financial Simplicity

Obtaining financial peace is a dream millions of Americans envision, and it's one Sarah and I are actively pursuing.  Last night we opened up Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover book, after receiving it months ago from a friend Sarah went to high school with (Sandra Horton).  Not too long ago, Sandra and her husband achieved financial peace after just two and a half years of major sacrifice, paying off thousands of dollars in debt, including their mortgage.  To celebrate, the couple invited family and friends to commemorate the occasion and bought a case of Ramsey's book to pass out to friends.  We were one of the lucky ones to get a copy (in the mail) and now have finally taken on the challenge for ourselves.

As boring as the first paragraph might be with no creative frills to state the simple, I want to get right to the point.  We are dead serious about doing this.  Because of this, Sarah canceled our cell phone service today, amounting to a savings of $200 a month and $2,400 a year.  We're opting for a free service offered by Google (Google Voice) to communicate, although it means not staying connected 24/7 as we have become accustomed to in the past few years of our lives.  Upon the announcement, many of our friends have congratulated us in this new phase of our lives, and many have said we are crazy.  I say it's definitely crazy, but only in the sense that I am crazy to get this debt monkey off my back once and for all.

We tried to sell Sarah's car tonight but that didn't go as expected.  But we are going to be tightening down and throwing money at debt, following the Dave Ramsey plan to get the lenders out of our lives and welcoming the peace and love of financial freedom, plus giving to our creator God even more, the proper place the latter two deserve.

But this does bring up an interesting point in the process: becoming less connected than we have known, and allowing ourselves to become vulnerable once again to the simplicity of a couple in love enjoying the bond to a beautiful baby boy.  Disconnecting cell phone service means no instant access to email, Twitter, Facebook, voice mail, and phone calls in or out (an emergency phone or employer cell phones notwithstanding).  This will hit me harder than Sarah, as she is able to access the internet all day long with the new system we're adopting.  I will have to rely on WiFi and wireless internet connection via work for my connections as I rove central Texas on the job.  I suspect I will learn the WiFi hotspots of Austin quite well - just as I have learned the restrooms as a man on the go.  Because, after all, when a man has to go, he has to go!

In this world of instant connectivity, it will be very interesting, dare I say freeing, to experience time without being connected to the inner-world of the internet 100 percent of the time.  I am looking forward to untying myself from the interconnected web of social media and email just as much as I am scared of it.  But, in the end, I will come out debt-free and with a higher appreciation of a world I may have been missing because my cell phone put blinders on my eyes.  Finally, I will be financially free and understand what it will mean to cut the communications ties. 

Amish?  Hardly.  Insane?  Totally.  Different?  Most definitely.  What we need to do?  Absolutely.