No, one of my children didn't develop a potty mouth, I'm talking about the dreaded Budget. Jake and I are participating in Financial Peace University, through our church. It's a 13 week dvd course put on by multi-millionaire Dave Ramsey. The first couple of weeks have been a breeze, until our homework included a monthly cash flow plan (sophisticated form for a budget)and an allocated spending report. I've tempted a few budgets in my day, after all I'm good with numbers. They just never seem to work and I'm stuck again with too much month left at the end of the money. I needed discipline, I buy what I want and then just shift all the money around to make it work. I have tried taking this homework seriously and have been doing it on time.
It took me an hour to do the first budget only to find out at the next class that I had to change some things in order to pay off our debts. The redo took me another hour, when Jake decided to tell me I did it all wrong. How frustrating, why didn't he suggest that in the first place, afterall we were supposed to be doing it together. I'm not quite finished with our March budget, but I hope to have it finalized by the time March rolls in here.
If you don't know about Dave's plan, he has you follow 7 baby steps to have financial peace.
1. $1,000 emergency fund
2. Debt snowball - payoff all your debt except your mortgage
3. 3-6 months expenses emergency fund
4. Save 15% for retirement
5. Save for college
6. Pay off mortgage
7. Build wealth & give
I am happy to say we are working on baby step #2, which will take us awhile, as Jake still has $9,000 left on his student loans. It feels really good to be working toward a goal though. If anyone is interested in the FPU let me know you can come with us to a class for free to check it out.
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