Desperately Seeking Financial Peace?

The new year brought many things for me.  I didn’t necessarily make any resolutions, but I did decide that there were a few things that I needed to work on.  I had three things that I wanted to focus on and they are, in this order…

1. To draw closer to God, to listen, to obey
2. To get better organized
3. To get my finances in check

You might wonder why I put the organization before the finances…I did because the organization is in large part the problem with the finances.

Sad, is it not?

As far as organization goes, I’ve been getting much better.  Actually, I’ve made progress leaps and bounds above what I ever imagined for myself.

Getting the organization under control and working on that has helped tremendously.

For example, did you know that it’s cheaper to cook rather than eat out?  Did you also know that if you meal plan, you can make a grocery list?  And did you know that with a grocery list you can go to the grocery store and only buy what you need and not just randomly adding items to your cart to get out of there because your kids are driving you crazy?

No, really, I’m serious.

The small changes have been helping me to really get motivated on the financial thing.

I started Financial Peace University in January.  The first two weeks was great.  Dave Ramsey is funny and he’s a great speaker and what he was saying makes sense, although if I’m being honest, there really wasn’t anything that he said that I didn’t know already.  But knowing and applying are two different things.

Then we got to week three where we had to sit down and write it all down and go through stuff and get organized in the financial department.  The bill box? Oh I didn’t want to go there.

So Friday night, I gathered up all of my stuff and I sat down and started to go through everything. I worked for two hours Friday night and I worked another 4 hours on it last night so that I could have my paperwork ready for class tonight.

Over these 6 hours, I compiled and created my consumer equity sheet in which I learned that I actually do have some equity (overall) to my name.  I was a little shocked, but you know what?  It wasn’t as bad as I thought.  But I want it to be higher.

Then I looked at all the lump sum payments that I make every year to determine how much I needed to set aside every month.  That’s when I started to get a little scared.  I mean, where’s all that extra stuff going to go?  But I did it, because I had to, before I moved on to my next assignment… the monthly cash flow plan.

Oy.  But you know what?  I got it done.    And I know that I’m going to have to go back over it and change it 20 times in February and it’s going to be May before it settles down and my budget gets under control, but I feel better about February already, even though, it’s still not something that I’m proud of.

After the budget, I had to allocate everything, so I have a plan and after allocating it, I had to get to the part that I really didn’t like… the debt.

Debt.

I had a number in my head with the amount of debt that I had.  It wasn’t horrible, I didn’t think, below the national average, but just like you shouldn’t compare your child’s growth to those around you, you shouldn’t compare yourself by saying “well, I’m not bad as so and so.”

And, I have to tell you, I never counted my car as debt.  The house and the car were never included in that number because they were debts that I had to have.

But Dave says that I have to include them.

“Dave says” is a phrase that is uttered quite a bit in my life now a days.

So I had to come up with a plan, overall.

And what better way than to put it all out there?  I find that if I tell someone what I’m planning, I do a little better.

So here we go:

As of January 25, 2009 I have $132,922.34 in debt.  Yes, that includes my house.  It also includes my car.

I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to do this, but you know what?  I know that I can and I know that if I do what I am supposed to do, it will get done.

It’s alot.

It’s embarrassing.

But I’m going to do something about it.

My first step is to put together my emergency fund of $1,000.  I want this done by the end of February.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t have $1,000 of extra cash laying around here but you know what I do have?

Stuff.

Lots and lots of stuff.

So guess what I’m going to do?

I’m going to combine all three goals and continue listening to the Lord and not making money in ways that I shouldn’t.  I’m going to get better organized around this house and start selling some of this stuff that I have.  Seriously.  There’s so much stuff here and we don’t need it.  We’re busting at the seams and so what better way to earn some money than by purging.

By the end of February, I’m going to have my emergency fund of $1,000 and then I’ll come back and share my plan to complete Baby Step number 2 — which is paying off the debt.

For now, I’ll work on the baby steps.

Until next time..