money makeover

We had a great discussion with our small group this week on budgets.

It stemmed from a series of financial lessons we are doing in Sunday School right now.

All of this finance stuff has been something that has been near the top of our priority list for the last year or so...a little off and on...but now, completely ON! And no, it has NOTHING to do with the economy....it just happens to be falling at the same time.

I guess it's been about a year since our small group did a financial study...mostly based around Dave Ramsey...we LOVED it! Thanks Joel and Kendall...we can't imagine our lives now without someone bringing these lessons up for us! We had never thought of this stuff, never knew we were really doing anything wrong...or at least NOT right! We knew we wondered where our money always seemed to go and I knew it was NO fun hearing "don't spend any money" every time I left the house. And yes, I will admit....money always seems to bring about those ever so famous arguments in marriages...and they were definitely not absent at our house!

We tried so hard to put everything we learned into action and get on a budget. We were just beginning to figure it out when Mason was born...so that threw us all off. We gave up, and didn't want to give the time needed to get something working for us. So we just continued spending as usual. Some months passed and we decided we needed to give it a try again. This time it stuck! The hardest part was just learning the record keeping part of it. Thanks to Joel Smith and his wonderful excel sheet...we now have a system that works SO well for us. And it just so happened that right when we were beginning to make this a priority again...we began a financial study in Sunday School...with more Dave Ramsey and the Crown Ministries resources which helps us to keep biblical foundations on handling our finances. It was perfect timing for us!

BUDGET...this word SCARED me when we first started studying Dave Ramsey. I, had a very common response to that word...immediately thinking "budgets are BAD...they'll restrict me, it means I'm under someone else's controal, they're only for people who are struggling" The negative thoughts went on and on. Yes, I know, I was VERY nieve (sp?) to what this was all about. BOY WAS I EVER SO WRONG!

We LOVE telling our money where to go....every last dollar of it. Until we really got this budget down, we felt like our money controlled US...it caused stress. Now that we have gained control....it is SOOOO freeing! It's hard to explain until you experience it. I used to stress about the amount we spent on groceries...dreading hearing the total at the end. But now, we TELL ourselves how much we have....and when we spend it, WE'RE in control. It doesn't feel stressful at all. I used to shop for clothes, even when I shouldn't have been. I'd have a sense of guilt. Now, because we tell every dollar where to go BEFORE it is spent....when I buy that cute shirt that I'm eyeing...I have ZERO guilt! We put the money there to be spent. And if I just want $20 to blow....we just admit it...and put it on paper.

Saving was always a dreaded thing. We wanted to do it, we knew we weren't saving like we should. Well, DUH!!! That's because we had no idea where our money was going and we'd tell ourselves we'd save however much we had left over...HAHA!!! Now we name each dollar for each thing we want to save....before our money is spent! We have saved more money in the last 4 months than we have in the last 4 years we've been married! I just LOVE the control factor in this!!!

So I wouldn't say it was fun creating the budget, working out all the kinks, eliminating ALL spontaneous spending, figuring out how to keep records...but now that we have it down....it seriously is FUN! Does that make me a dork??? It's just so nice to be over the stresses of money....not that they'll never come again, because I'm sure we'll have things come up. But with this system, there's just nothing to stress about...your money goes EXACTLY where you tell it to go! Did I mention that I LOVE this control!??!!

So, if you can't tell...I'm a HUGE advocate for BUDGETS and for Dave Ramsey! He's funny, he's down to earth, he KNOWS what he's talking about...he covers all the myths that the world makes us believe about finances, credit cards, mortgages, etc. And teaches EXACTLY what to do to be different! And yes, we want to be different...because the world lives in debt, the world doesn't control their money...so being different is GOOD!

If you have never been through a financial study....you HAVE TO! Or at least get this book (and he has awesome DVDs too!) for yourself....

A quote that Dave Ramsey says is this "If you wanna be rich, you gotta do rich people things" We discussed this in Sunday School...and this comment can definitely be taken bad or good. Having a biblical foundation (which is SO important) with your finances doesn't really allow us to have the goal of being rich. But I'm not gonna look too deep into that comment...I think he's referring to the behavior we have to have with our money. I would say that most people who have lots of money, have it because of what they have DONE with their money...the control they have had on it. So that's the goal....the behavior. A change in behavior.

And the purpose for this post....not quite sure...I was just feeling energetic about this topic. Although I do know that if we had not been motivated by others...we would have never changed our behavior. So if this can motivate SOMEONE....that's the purpose.