One Year To An Organized Financial Life: May Week Two

I’ve mentioned before that my dh and I went through a bankruptcy.  Our credit spending changed drastically after that!  We have chosen not to have a credit card unless it is a pre-paid one.  This week Regina and Russell talk about curbing our credit card spending.  Firstly, you need to figure out what the total debt load is currently.  Next, find out why you are buying on credit; the author state three main reasons: unconscious spending, major illness and “magic money”. 

Just prior to our bankruptcy we were very close to having our credit cards paid off.  The trouble was that my dh’s job “fell out from underneath us”.  The work just wasn’t there anymore.  So we put a lot of living expenses on our credit cards.  We used our credit cards as “survival”.  Part of our problem was that we had matched our spending to what his current income was.  When that current income changed (dropped drastically) we were stuck; we were stuck with cc debt, two brand new vehicles (making payments), and a new (to us) house that needed a tonne of work.  He found work within a few short months, but the wage was less and we were so far behind that there was really no way out for us (that we could see at that point).

Since then we have taken a couple of courses as well as pointers from our bankruptcy trustee office.  The main course that we took (twice now) is Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University.  Many of the same principles are presented in both Regina Leeds’ book and Dave Ramsey's material.  I encourage anyone in financial trouble to find someone “who speaks your language” and get the help you need before you get to a point where you see no way out and have to claim bankruptcy as we did.  (Dave Ramsey is not a proponent of bankruptcy at all!  He says that all those debts need to be repaid; they were contracts and deals that you signed and the correct thing to do is to fulfill those commitments.  At least that is my understanding from what I’ve learned taking his course.)

Habit: Save Pocket Change – I “caught” dh throwing change into the piggy bank this week!!!!

Tool: Dream Board

Have a great week!  On to next week’s material.

 

Striving to learn and live God's purposes,

The coming week and some thoughts

I am looking forward to this next week. I can't say that has been the case for a number of weeks now.

Today (Sunday) we went to church, followed by lunch with friends and then both couples went (kidless) to Financial Peace University class. Our babysitter was left with 8 children to look after. The age range was 10, 8, 7, 4, 3, 2.5, 1.5 and 1. Being the middle of the afternoon, a number of the little ones slept and the older three or four entertained each other. They had a busy and fun afternoon.

Monday morning has the children and I volunteering at one of the local seniors homes; we get to play ball with them. Then K has choir in the afternoon.

Tuesday is a free day. J potentially has some part time, potentially full time work starting this day. We'll know more after the first couple of days.

Wednesday is the day we like to go to the library. At the library we will look at books and use the computers. The kids love it because each of them has access at the same time!!!! Later that evening, babysitter (from now on referred to as B) will come so that J and I can go to our dance class! I. Can't. Wait!!! It is going to be so fun. I hope. I'm a little nervous being that I've never done anything like it before. I hope we catch on quickly.

October 1st is Thursday! The month of September gone for another year! In the morning we have Tumble Tots, which is an indoor play time in a gym-like room with riding toys and other large toys that most families don't have at home. My older two are little older than that age range this Tumble Tots is for, but if they get bored I will be sure to have brought some sit down school work for them to do! In the afternoon, the big girls have dance. They had their first class last week and they loved it! I hope they continue to love it.

Friday is another "empty" day. Not sure it will stay empty, but so far it has nothing written on it.

The first weekend of October has Fire Etc. training for my DH. He will be gone both Saturday and Sunday.

I don't know why I'm so hopeful and looking forward to the week, but I think it might be because we are getting back into the rhythm of things for the winter. It's still nice enough that we can get outside a little bit, but the day to day activities are coming into full swing. I like the routine of things.



Financial Peace University. This is our second time through the course. This year we are going as leaders, but I think we're more backup in case Seven and Tammy-Lee can't be there. And I'm totally okay with that. :) They led the course last year and did such a great job! We learned a lot. I expect to learn a lot this year too!

This week we did the first lesson called Super Saving. Something that I picked up from the lesson was that J and I might not be hitting "it" as hard as we could be. We are kinda of the mindset that we are living in an emergency and therefore we need to keep at just our four walls. However, when there is money at the end of the month, like this month, we need to re-think and re-budget so that we are putting more in an emergency fund and on our debts. We've been using our emergency fund as more of a sinking fund and in my opinion we need to redefine that and change it. We need to focus on an emergency fund, and start a sinking fund for things later. Something dh and I need to discuss more.



Television. The shows I are looking forward to this week are Dexter (premieres tonight); Lie To Me & CSI: MIAMI on Monday; the 2 NCIS', Mentalist on Tuesday; on Wednesday I like Criminal Mind. Thursday is SURVIVOR NIGHT!!! And CSI and Fringe and Bones. On Frieday is Numb3rs. I watch most of these programs (or rather listen to) from my desk while J watches them. The ones I always leave my desk for are Survivor, Dexter and CSI: Miami.

So, I hope you have a good week. I plan to!

Striving to learn and live God's purposes,

Habit for the Month - September

We are a week into the month of September! I feel like September is flying as fast as August did! So I need a new habit for this month and I've decided that this will be getting on some regular homeschooling. A week in and we aren't doing well already! Granted it has been a nice week and we've spent a lot of time outside and with friends.

I would like for us to do 2 pages of math, 2 sentences and a picture in their journal, some spelling work, and reading at least one book, if not more five days a week. I'd like to do a lot more than that but we are working slowly up to a full work load. We are really flexible with our homeschooling, believing that life is learning, but at the same time I want to show that we are at least making an effort at some "real" schooling. lol.

Three specific things will be added to our weekly activities that are learning. These include K going to choir, K and CJ going to a dance class and all of us going to "Tumble Tots" (an indoor play time for those under 6). Mondays are choir and Thursdays are dance and Tumble Tots. Wednesdays are library. So we are home all day (at least that's the plan) Tuesday and Friday. Saturday is unplanned. Sunday will be church service and FPU.

So September's plan is to get into the routine of our new activities and the sit-down school work that we'd like to get accomplished.


Striving to learn and live God's purposes,

Habit for the Month - August's Review

So this month we made some health changes - better food, less junk, more exercise and more water. Well, I did really well with cutting the junk until this last week. I've done okay with the exercise; I want to do more in that area. We've kept up with the better food - fruit and vegetables! I've not done so well with the more water, except that I've cut pop, and replaced it with either fruit juice (watered down) or just plain water. I still need to work on this though.

One thing that we've noticed with eating better is that the grocery budget needs to expand with that. We'd cut our budget to almost half of what it had been when we were working through Financial Peace University. The new budget was too small because we resorted to eating cheap pastas, breads and not very many veggies. We've upped our budget to make up for the changes in our diet. Eating well is important to us.

Striving to learn and live God's purposes,

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Thinking On Scripture

Proverbs 10:22

The blessing of the Lord makes one rich, and He adds no sorrow with it.

It's okay for us to be wealthy. Is that a new concept for you? It wasn't totally new to me; I'd heard rumors of it before, but it rang true again when we talked about it this week at our FPU course.

Striving to learn and live God's purposes,

Okay, seriously!

UPDATE at the bottom!

Jason and I are generally pretty giving people. But I've had about enough of people "borrowing" our property without permission.

First it was the back alley neighbor to the left who had playground equipment installed for his little boy through the Make A Wish Foundation. They took our gravel from our yard. In the whole scheme of things, not a big deal! But what if we had a plan for that gravel in our own yard! It's called stealing! It's called TRESPASSING! It's called have some decent respect. If the other homeowner had asked, Jason probably would have given the gravel to him. But he STOLE IT!

Then in the fall we heard tell of a man who parked in the back alley, right in the middle of the road so no one could get through, and stood in our bush and ate all our Saskatoon Berries!! I was going to pick and freeze or can those berries for our own use. When J went out to see if they were ready, they were GONE! We know he had a red truck, but that's about all we know. I can't beleive it. He didn't just go along the edge of the bush by the alley; to eat what he ate, he had to walk right into and onto our property.

Now today, a back hoe or high hoe or something big and yellow and dangerous for kids to climb on unattended, is sitting in my back yard! I gave NO ONE permission to park there. This piece of equipment was seen digging up the yard of the back alley neighbor to the right. That house has a fence. But he was digging right behind the house so, why didn't he just leave the machine in the backyard of THAT house inside that house's FENCE!!! Why in my backyard? Just cuz "oh they won't mind".

UH, NO, I do mind! Thank you very much!

1. IT'S TRESPASSING!
2. IT'S A SAFETY ISSUE!
3. IT'S TRESPASSING!
4. IT'S MY YARD!
5. IT'S A LIABILITY ISSUE ON THEIR PART!

What kind of society do we live in, when someone I DON'T KNOW can just park his large equipment on my yard! What kind of society do we live in, where I am not granted the common decency of asking me if I mind if they park there. My yard is NOT a free-for-all! It's MY YARD! HELLO!

And do I go and talk to the man, when he comes back from lunch? No. I'm too mad. Will J? Probably not. But we have plans to put up a fence, even if it's just on that back corner.

UGH! It's so frustrating.

I teach my kids about respecting the property of others. When we are walking down the street we stay on the sidewalk and not on someone else's front grass. When we go to visit someone, we don't snoop and poke about in their things, just eating whatever we choose from their garden. We don't just assume that they won't mind. We ask permission first!

Our neighbor that we share this block of land with has been here for years. She owns about a third of the block and we have the rest (think church parking lot and parsonage). She owns the parsonage and property and we own the church and its parking lot. She has been a wonderful neighbor and her children are respectful of our property. They cut through the back corner of our yard to go to school or wherever these guys go, but they don't muck with the garden or eat our berries or leave trash on our yard. At least I don't think they do. The pets on the other hand don't know the same boundaries, but our cats don't either. lol. We can live with that. The people that live next door (I'll call them S.T. and family) are great with my kids. All summer long the yards are almost one. The boys from next door are growing up and don't use their tree house and other such equipment as much as they once did. S.T. has welcomed the girls and W in her yard to play with their things. She scolds as needed and sends them home. I don't mind. We have a relationship.

It's these ding-dongs that think they own the world that I have a problem with. It's the pain-in-the-butt cocky blah blahs that I have an issue with! Something has got to be done! We need to teach and re-train our society to have some R-E-S-P-E-C-T!!!!

Now to figure out how to make this new fence work with our Dave Ramsey budget!

UPDATE: My dear friend Tammy-Lee came over for a visit. She is a real go-getter. I don't know if she read my post before she got here or got here and talked to Jason before she came in, but when she came in she said that she'd gone to the neighbor and asked that the machine be moved. "Well, we're not sure who's property that is." "Yeah, you know who's property it is and I know who's property it is." "Would a couple hours be fine?" "No, move it." Gotta love, Tammy-Lee. Thanks, so much! Now, maybe some No Trespassing Signs and then a fence.

Learning to live my life with purpose,

I keep talking about Financial Peace University

Well, I want to link you to a post written by a woman who has completed Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. I love what she has to say. We are only working on lesson 4 and here is some of the ways FPU has changed or affected us:

• J and I are communicating better!
• Our priorities have changed a little.
• We see light at the end of the tunnel. It's hard to have hope in our situation, but there is a glimmer now.
• We will teach our children, so they do not have the same problems.
• We are on the same page, going after the same goals; working as a team!

Lesson four is about snowballing the debt away! We claimed bankruptcy not all that long ago so we do not have a lot of debt - under 5000 currently. And because of that bankruptcy we have stayed away from credit cards. We learned that lesson.

Dave Ramsey talks about bills or payments that "fall below the line". Right now our debts fall below the line. What you do is give every dollar a name and when the money runs out so do the payments. He says to keep your four walls up - food, shelter, transportation and clothing. Right now we aren't doing much better than those four walls. But every dollar has a name; we have a plan. And it is exciting. Hard. But exciting.

If you haven't already, I encourage you to check out Dave Ramsey's "stuff" - books, courses, products. It's all good; just common sense.


Learning to live my life with purpose,

We will persevere.

At every turn it seems that we are beaten down and dragged in the spring mud. Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University is a 13 week / 91 day course. It is hard work and great information. Homework every week and hard to hear lessons. He has 7 baby steps; today we worked on Baby Step #2 - Pay down debt using the debt snowball. Steps #1 and #3 have to do with saving and emergency funding. Although we are four weeks in now, J and I are only at step #1. Sadly, and not for lack of trying. We are discouraged and frustrated. Kinda hopeless at times.

Since January of this year we have been living on dh's severance which is now gone, and has been for quite some time. He has applied for parental leave, which should be coming, and we assumed would be here by now, but it's not. We were counting on dh's income tax return to fulfill Baby Step #1 which is to put $1000 in our emergency fund. Not going to happen now. When, if, it gets here, it will have to pay the bills to keep the lights, and phones on and the house warm. I guess we are living in an emergency.

Step #3 is 3 to 6 months of expenses in savings for when an emergency arises. If we had that, we'd be okay. However, we've been living on whatever savings and other money to get to this point.

Moving on, to other great news (read with sarcasm)! The transmission in the van needs attention. We are not 100% that it is totally broke, but it's not good. We're back down to the suburban, which doesn't seat all 7 of us. I'm so bummed.

But the Bible is FULL of encouragement.

Psalm 50:9-11 - KJV -

⁹I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he goats out of thy folds. ¹⁰For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. ¹¹I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine.

And this next one is often quoted:

Matthew 6:24-36 - KJV -

²⁴No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. ²⁵Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? ²⁶Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? ²⁷Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? ²⁸And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: ²⁹And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. ³⁰Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? ³¹Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? ³²(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. ³³But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. ³⁴Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Jeremiah has a great message too. Although we may feel abandoned, for a long time (70 years??), God still cares.

Jeremiah 29:10-14 - KJV -

¹⁰For thus saith the LORD, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place. ¹¹For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. ¹²Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. ¹³And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. ¹⁴And I will be found of you, saith the LORD: and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places whither I have driven you, saith the LORD; and I will bring you again into the place whence I caused you to be carried away captive.

And this one can definitely be applied directly to money:

Luke 12:48 - KJV -

⁴⁸But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.

We ask the question of ourselves - Have we been doing well with the "little" we've been given? What do we need to do to prove that we can be trusted with "much"? What lessons do we need to learn and apply? We wanna learn them, apply them and help others.

So we continue on, doing the best we can with what we have; learning the lessons we need to learn to do better in the future. We rejoice in the fact that God provides. We will persevere and we will succeed. Even when all seems hopeless.

Learning to live my life with purpose,

Thinking On Scripture - Wealth

Tuesday nights are FPU Night. We meet together with several other couples to work through Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. We've completed the first week and although this is going to be tough, the benefits will be well worth the time and effort.

Here are some verses to think on in regard to money, wealth and saving:

Proverbs 21:20 - In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil, but a foolish man devours all he has.

1 Timothy 6:10a - For the love of money is the root of all evil.

Genesis 41:35-36 - And let them gather all the food of those good years that come, and lay up corn under the hand of Pharaoh, and let them keep food in the cities. And that food shall be for store to the land against the seven years of famine, which shall be in the land of Egypt; that the land perish not through the famine.

Proverbs 28:20 - A faithful man shall abound with blessings: but he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent.

Psalm 62:10 - Trust not in oppression, and become not vain in robbery: if riches increase, set not your heart upon them.

I am learning so very much, and re-learning and being stretched so far. DH and I filed bankruptcy in December of 2007 so we have far less debt than most in the country. We have no credit cards as a result of the bankruptcy and because of a decision since then to not go into debt like that again. We learned the hard way. So now we are learning the skills needed to keep us using our money, not letting our money use us. One of the big steps in that is using cash, which we've been forced to do (partly through the bankruptcy and partly on a decision to do so since then). We will be learning about saving (lesson one that we just completed).

I'm so glad to be learning more scripture that talk about money and wealth. For example, the passage in Genesis. I never thought of that as a savings plan, but it is. They had to save - it was their emergency fund. We don't have an emergency fund yet. The principle is right there; I just never saw it before. Now we get to apply it.

I encourage you to go to Dave Ramsey's site and see if there is a FPU in your area and if there isn't I suggest talking to your church group or employer about having one. Or, even lead one yourself. Dave Ramsey's staff are very helpful and knowledgable.