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Starting To Turn It Around

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I have not posted anything in awhile and so I am going to try and catch up on everything that has gone on.
Starting To Turn It Around

I feel like we are starting to turn our downward spiral around. The week before our son's birthday party we spent way too much money and still had to pay for a party. Initially, we had planned a low budget party and we kept to that game plan. I thought it came out nice and Anthony had a good time.

I think Felicia has the gazelle intensity now because she got after me the other day. On my late day for work, I thought I did not have time to make my lunch so I decided to buy lunch and when Felicia found out she nearly hit the roof. She looked at me and reminded me of the sacrifices we need to make now to get where we want to be. At first I was offended, who is she to be getting after me for buying lunch? Later in the day, she looked at the bank account online and discovered that I also bought breakfast instead of making it because I thought I did not have enough time. As soon as I answered the phone, she made it known that she was mad at me. Again, I was offended and ready to list all the times she messed up with money, but then I sat and thought about it. She has the gazelle intensity that I have been waiting her to have and now I was a wounded gazelle.

So I am trying to follow her lead and rev it back up. We made the budget and agreed on it and for the most part we have stuck to it. We are talking about it more to each other and reminding each other about our agreement when one of us starts to stray.

Dave Ramsey Live
Felicia, two of my cousins, and I went to see Dave Ramsey Live on March 28th. He was awesome and funny. He pretty mucg goes over everything in the book but in a little more detail. I like how he separates spouses in two categories: the nerds and the free spirit. I think I am the nerd, most of the time, and Felicia is the free spirit. The nerd gets all the spreadsheets together and talks about all the details in the budget and the free spirit is bored to tears. Dave's advice was for the nerd to make the budget and handed to free spirit and then shut up. After that the free spirit has to look it over and make a couple of changes to it. The last budget we did that is what happened.

The coolest part was when he walked over to our section and asked for the engaged couples that have set a date for the wedding to stand up. My two cousins, Louie (my cousin) and Kim (his fiancee), stood and told Dave the date they set and he gave them and 7 other couples free admission to his Financial Peace University Class. He made everyone make two promises: they will go to the class and when they succeed they will pay for someone else to go through it.

FPU
Tomorrow night, we are supposed to be having dinner with Louie and Kim to discuss FPU. They had their first class on Wednesday and Felicia and I have not found a convenient time and a place to start our classes so they are going to tell us how it went. I can't wait to find out what happened. Spoke to Louie earlier and he said that they go into more details about the Baby Steps and everyone in the class seems comfortable because they are all at the same starting point. Tomorrow, he will go into more detail.

Stupid Tax

A week after Maya was born I paid a stupid tax. I am really embarrassed to admit it but I have to be honest and admit to it. A couple of months ago, I switched our Energy Provider and normally Felicia paid the electric bill. Since I was the one that switched companies, I agreed to be responsible for paying it. Well, since I was not use to paying the electric bill I forgot about it. Of course the company cut off the lights while Felicia and the kids were here and I was at work. I had to call to find out how to get it on. According to their procedures, I had to send certified funds (which makes sense), and then I had to fax the receipt requesting for the lights to be turned back on. Let me tell you, I did not want to go home, and I even asked a co-worker if I could hide at their house. As a result, we had to spend a night at my in-laws and pay $20 to send a bank wire. Talk about stupid. Side note, my mom said I take after my father when I told her what happened, but that is a story for another day.
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