One Step At A Time

On the 24th of this month, Felicia and I sat together and had our first Budget Committee Meeting. We instituted Dave's rules and got through the meeting without an argument. The goal of the meeting was to produce a realistic budget for the month of July and we thought we did. One of the rules for me was to shut up and give the budget to Felicia. That was hard to do. My hands were actually shaking when I handed her the budget and had to watch her make changes to it. In the middle of our meeting, the part where she looks it over and makes changes, I had to run to the store to get diapers for the kids and when I came back she explained the changes and how she made the changes balance to zero again. Her changes were reasonable and we agreed to the budget. I am pretty sure we both felt good about the budget and were looking forward to putting into effect. The next morning while I was getting ready for work I realized we forgot to budget for some very important items. We actually...

Last Sunday was our 3rd class in Financial Peace University, and we talked about the the dreaded B-word, Budget. Since I read Total Money Makeover months ago, we have been doing the budget and have posted several times about it. Therefore, I am not going to go over every detail of this past Sunday's class, but will discuss some of the issues I have with budgeting so far. I believe if I keep honestly critiquing us and our money management, it will help us in the long run to win with money. Having a lot of money is not the desired result of this process, the results we are looking for are Financial Peace, retire with dignity, and pursue some of our dreams later in life. Below are just some of the things and habits that gets in our way of achieving our goals. One of the things that I do that absolutely does not work is create the budget and never look at it again. I work hard to make a zero based budget and making sure every dollar has a name, but never pull out the game plan to m...

This past Sunday was our 2nd class in FPU and it was about money and relationships. During the class, I could not help but look back at how Felicia and I have handled money and our relationship. We have always gotten along real well but when it came to money fights, we were seasoned fighters. Looking back, we had a lot of unnecessary fights. In a nutshell, it was her job to pay the bills and my job to complain about what happened to all the money. Honestly, that is how it was. I let her pay all the bills, then I would ask how much we had left and when I did not like the answer, I would launch an investigation into the matter. Understandably, she would take offense to the Spanish Inquistion and then the gloves would go on and 12 rounds later nothing would be solved. In hindsight, we both played a part in our financial mess. I chose to turn a blind eye to it and not deal with it; and she would deal with the financial stress with Ebay therapy. We have both gotten a lot better. I ...

A budget is not something you put off. When we do our budget, it helps us stay on track. In the past, I have written about getting off track but even during those times a budget kept us from going overboard. This time around we kept putting it off and putting it off and just kept spending without a plan. This laziness has hurt us and it pushes us further away from our goals. When we got paid on the15th, we did pretty good and had some extra cash in our envelopes at the end of the two weeks. This paycheck, I know we have spent more than we brought in and had to go tap into savings for non-emergencies. When this happens, it feels like I have let my family down. I am the one who is going to set the example for my children and their money. I could always just spin it and tell them that this is an example of what not to do. I know the habits that we are supposed to have that will make this work. It starts with making the budget. Duh! It needs to be done in order to make the money behave. W...

Yesterday, Felicia and I started our first class of Financial Peace University. FPU is a 13 week course made up of a hour of Video Tutorial by Dave Ramsey and an hour of discussion in small groups. We have been looking for months for a class to fit our schedule and due to my work schedule the best time was Sunday evenings. Originally, we found a small church that had 3 participants in the class in Cedar Hill. We were going to join that class but we felt we wanted to be part of a class that was little bigger. Yesterday, the class was at a Duncanville church and had at least 75 participants in the class and during the discussion period, the class had to be broken into at least 5 small groups. We both enjoyed our first class and our looking forward to the rest of them. This first class was about saving money and accomplishing Step 1. Step 1 is saving $1,000 for an emergency fund. I know it is not a huge emergency fund but it is a good starting point. The idea is to set small goals an...

There are a lot of foreclosures in the Dallas area now and everyone is saying this is the best time for us to buy a home, but I am hesitant to do so. Listening to Dave Ramsey , I know it is the best time to buy if you have the money and I do not have the money right now. Felicia and I want to make sure our house is a blessing and not a burden. Currently, my job is to help people who are 5 to 6 months behind on their mortgage. Right now, the modifications are being pushed to lower interest rates and/or reduce principle balances so homeowners can get lower payments. I always try to be sympathetic to everyone's situation but for a lot of people I cannot put myself in their shoes. I understand having hardships because loss of income, medical bills, divorces, deaths in family, and things like this. But what gets me is when you start to go over their budgets, you start to see misplaced priorities. I tried to understand and help every client by putting myself in their shoes, I un...

It has been a tough week for us and I don't think we are out of the woods yet. We spent every day this week except for Tuesday at the hospital with my daughter and I have been out of work the whole time as result. Finally we are home and she seems to be doing better but we are still waiting for some test results. We are praying that she is better and that the test will come back negative. We are also thankful for all the thoughts, prayers, and encouraging words our family and friends sent our way. As a result of being out of work for the whole week, I will not be getting paid for it. Unfortunately, I do not have any more sick time to use at work and we will have to be careful with every penny from now on. We pray this will be a small setback that we can recover from quickly. Knowing a storm is coming and not being fully prepared is a little scary. It has made us realize how important it is to get our finances in order as fast as we can. If we had a fully funded emergency f...