Our church is having it's first session of Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University and Tony and I have signed up. We had our first class last night and I am totally stressing out today. I am good at keeping our budget, but we do not put enough money in saving, nor do we tithe the full 10%...and we spend just about every penny (plus some) every pay period. So, I am stressed because I know some serious changes are coming and I'm not sure I am mentally ready. I am ready to get rid of our debt, but I guess I'm not fully checked in for actually getting there.
Our homework this week is to create our budget. I already do a really good job with our budget, but like I said, we have a lot of money going to 'frivolous' things. So, wish Tony and I luck as we start crunching the numbers this week.
Step One: Save $1000 for an emergency fund! We are hoping to get this one accomplished within a month.
I'll keep you updated on our progress.
1 comment:
Financial Peace is a great class--we offer it at our church, too. Don't get stressed by it all, just see it as a path for you to work on. It won't happen overnight, but you can get there!
Brad and I have found that using Mvelopes works wonders for our finances. (It is a great tool for implementing the Dave Ramsey principles). www.mvelopes.com It works in conjunction with your budget--basically, instead of the ol' fashioned cash envelope system, where you divide your money up each month, physically putting the cash into envelopes and when it is gone, its gone, it is a digital version. It works with online banking systems, you can check it from work or even from an iPhone or other smart phone, and it is AMAZING! Brad and I were on 2 paychecks, then I got laid off and took a volunteer position instead, so now we are a single income family on a military salary. We were living paycheck to paycheck, and although we had an auto-deposit of $400 each month into savings, we found ourselves raiding that (and then some) each month, barely scraping by. We started using mvelopes, and without any other change in our finances, we discovered that in our first month, we had an $800 surplus at the end of the month and didn't touch the savings auto-deposit. How? Turns out we were mindlessly blowing money every month by the boatload. The past few months have been SO MUCH BETTER! We've paid for all the home improvement projects out of our monthly income ($1000 in 2 months), and we've been able to pay cash for new tires ($500)--all things we would have charged or pulled from savings just a few months ago. It will totally change the way you spend your money, I swear. I'm sending you a referral link in your email--it gives you a % off the membership price (which is modest and worth every penny). Look it over, and if you decide you want to do it, call me or email me and I can walk you through getting it set up--I've learned a few things the hard way over the past couple of months! :) Good luck!!
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