Good-Bye iPhone

We recently terminated our phone contract prematurely, paid a few hundred dollars in cancellation fees and sold our iPhones on Craigslist to a man that could never love and cherish them as much as we did. As the new owner of our phones casually walked away, I felt a piece of my heart abandon me. So why would anyone who has owned, loved and known the amazement that Steve Jobs (RIP) so kindly graced mankind in the form and ease of a conveniently handheld device, sell their beloved iPhone?

Cue in a man named Dave Ramsey, a multi-millionaire and financial advisor/ author who talks about living a life “like no one else, (so) later you can live like no one else” and the necessity of “acting your wage.” I first heard about Dave Ramsey from an inspirational SHAYTARD's youtube video in which a family of six calls the Dave Ramsey's show to share their story of how they got out of debt through Ramsey's debt-free method. I immediately became intrigued with his beliefs that living a life without debt was very possible and very necessary. Jarod and I grew up believing that a car payment was simply apart of life and using credit cards were fine as long as you could afford the minimum payment. Ramsey’s response to our former financial beliefs: that’s absolutely ridiculous.

Unfortunately, Jarod and I learned about Dave Ramsey a little too late in the game and are in the oh-so-popular group that has debt and lots of it at that. We have a ton of school debt that we didn’t really use for, ohh, say, school. We were not only dumb, but very ignorant, with our finances.

I read Ramsey's book, “Total Money Makeover,” reiterated everything I learned in the book to Jarod and we sat down and talked very seriously about our financial future. We discussed our bills and exactly where our money was going each month as well as the necessities of each bill, which brought us to a discussion about our overpriced data smartphone plans. With Jarod’s work discount we were spending over $150 each month on our phones, which looked at individually isn’t that much but when you take into account that the interest in our school loans is growing exponentially all the time we’re paying way more on our phones. To further exacerbate the notion that we shouldn’t have these phones, particularly the pricey bill, Jarod’s recent promotion at work included a company phone. We made a very hard and difficult decision, even reasoned our way into keeping the phones more than a few times, and finally said good-bye.

Does my heart yearn for the day that I can be reunited with my long-lost love, iPhone? Absolutely. My current phone isn’t even a smidge as amazing as my iPhone was but it will and must do until we can truly afford an expensive phone and plan. Thanks to Dave Ramsey, it’s pretty simple logic to me now: iPhone is a high-maintenance stiletto-wearing, salon-going, name-brand whore and I’m just a jeans and T kind-of-kid straight out of high school with a minimum-wage job. We’re just two different people on two different paths.

Dear iPhone,

I love you but I can’t afford you. It’s not you, it’s me. I hope we can still be friends? :/

Miss you,

Kristine