Blowing Up the Logjam

Dave Ramsey shares in his book “The Total Money Makeover” that sometimes when we have done all that we can do, we can lose debt reduction momentum because there are no more budget cuts to make and no more sources of income to tap. It is as though the entire process is frozen because the pace is tediously slow. At this point, he encourages his listeners to blow up the logjam. This terminology originates from the logging industry where trees are cut and rolled into a river so the current can sweep them to the mill where they will be sold. Sometimes, the logs get jammed in the river and the only way to un-jam them is to use a little dynamite. The explosion destroys some of the logs in the process but the end result iss that the majority of the logs make it to market when the river flow is restored. The whole idea is that while some loss is incurred, the overall goal is achieved.

I came to understand this concept personally when we found our own debt-reduction at a standstill. It was several months into our plan and we were at a financial impasse. We had achieved great progress but we still had a long ways to go. We were jammed.

I was attending our church‟s financial class on Wednesday nights. To be honest, I was a little bored. I had listened to Dave Ramsey‟s book several times and knew the Baby Steps. I was intimately acquainted with everything being taught and I didn't need further convincing. I was tempted many times to skip the class but something made me keep going in hopes that I would learn something…anything…that would help us in our journey.

On one particularly tedious evening we were discussing Baby Step #4 which explains retirement and education savings. Part of me was zoning out because we were still on baby step #2 “The Debt Snowball” and retirement savings felt like a lifetime away. I had prayed before I went to class that God would reveal something to me that would help us in our situation and He was faithful to my prayers.

A light bulb went on. We had put a little RRSP contributions away through Shawn's work and we had been diligent to set up education savings accounts for each of our children when they were born. What if we could access that money and apply it to our debt? I discussed this with my husband and he was resistant at first because he couldn't see past the short-term loss. We talked about the logjam concept, prayed, did a little research and found out that we weren‟t going to lose as much as we thought in the process.

This is not the ideal thing to do as any investment broker will tell you and it didn't give us warm, fuzzy feelings. Instead it drove home the impact of our imperfect financial stewardship. I am strongly opposed to doing this unless you are fully committed to all the steps of the Total Money Makeover which will direct you to rebuild these savings in the future. We were committed and this was the right step for us to take. It propelled us toward the overall goal we were set on achieving.

This lesson applies to more than just money. Sometimes we have to take a couple steps backward because we have not acted wisely, waited for God's timing, or have built on a bad foundation. If God directs us to take a loss and we are obedient with the right motivation and stay committed to the process, we can be assured that He will restore all.