Back in August we entered the Dave Ramsey Total Money
Makeover Contest. I really hadn't thought much about it until today, when I
received an e-mail that began:
Dear Elizabeth & Erick,
Congratulations! You have been selected as a semi-finalist in the Total
Money Makeover Contest. Here's what you need to do now....
I couldn't
believe it! The kids thought from the expression on my face that something was
wrong. I could hardly wait another ten minutes for Erick to get home from school
so I could tell him! I thought he was going to flip out!
We are one of 200
semi-finalists in this contest. Now I have to send in all of our financial
documents to prove what we submitted on the form. I have to get it all by
October 12th.
The only thing is, I don't have proof of our emergency fund.
That's not good. I called the number in the e-mail for questions about it, and I
asked if I have our group leaders sign something saying we had it and got it
notarized if that would be accepted and she thought it might work, but couldn't
guarantee it. I hope they decide it's good enough! We were going to put it in
another account but never got around to it. We didn't really expect to get this
far and need to have proof.
But if we don't get chosen to be finalists, in a
way it will be less hassle. If we are chosen we'll have to fly out to the
Bahamas next January, which will mean figuring out schedules and babysitters and
everything. From what I understand, they take the 10 finalist couples out there
and then on the last day they award the winning couple with $50,000 on TV. I
don't even know if I could take the baby with us, and he'll only be 4 1/2 months
by then. I'm also not sure exactly when school starts back up, but I think it's
that week. So Erick would be skipping his first couple of days of classes. I
don't think that would be too terrible, because they just hand out the syllabi
those first few days anyway. Surely he could get them from someone else.
I
think it would work out (if we won, of course!) if we took our Christmas trip to
Indiana a couple of weeks later and let the grandparents babysit for a week. As
long as I can take the baby. I don't know if I could leave him for five days at
that age even for a chance to win $50,000. The trip is required to win. Even if
you were the grand prize winner, if you don't go on the trip, you forfeit the
prize and someone else is selected.
Of course, the chances that this is
something we even would have to worry about are pretty small. We're one of 200.
On the other hand, the chances of being picked for semi-finalists also had to
have been small. It's exiting just to be picked! It's exciting knowing the Great
Dave Ramsey himself is going to be reading my essay! (Even though I couldn't
hardly even begin to say everything I wanted to say in only 500 words!)
After Dave Ramsey reads the 200 essays and they throw out all the
semi-finalists who don't have the proper financial documentation (we may get
thrown out if they don't accept our proof of our emergency fund) and he picks
the ten finalists, he also is going to post them on his website and let America
vote for the Grand Prize winner. So you all make sure to log on and vote for us
if we get to be finalists! I think we'll be on there anyway for being
semi-finalists. It mentioned in the rules that they'd all be listed, I think
after September 30th.
This is so exciting! I think I'm going to have to
un-archive the Dave Ramsey thread so I can post in it again.
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