Dear Dave,

My wife and I are on Baby Step 2 of your plan, and I’m in graduate school while working full-time. We’re trying to cash flow my education from this point forward after previously taking out student loans. Our household income is $90,000 a year, and we have a car payment. Are we taking the correct approach to handle all this responsibly?

Dan

Dear Dan,

I love this approach and the fact that you’re willing to work hard and be disciplined to make all this happen. At this point you just need to lay your finances out and crunch the budget numbers as to what tuition and school are going to cost between now and when you graduate.

Your first goal is to do no more harm, meaning that you graduate and finish this degree without taking on any more debt. I think beyond that, and I don’t know what you’re paying for the school, you should have some money to work your debt snowball. Don’t beef up the payments on your debt so heavily that you use up money that you’ll need for tuition. Getting through school will slow down your debt snowball somewhat, but that’s okay. This is a worthy cause, and you’re approaching it the right way. I just don’t want you to get so excited and gazelle intense about paying off your debt that you end up borrowing for tuition.

Congratulations on being really smart with your finances and your education. It’s a really neat idea, and you guys are going about it in exactly the right way!

— Dave