Financial Peace
I have to be honest, Jason and I are not good with money. Since we married, we have struggled with our finances. We started our marriage with two car payments, a little credit card debt and a mortgage on my house back in Georgia. We finally sold that house after it had been on the market for many months but it cost us $15,000 to sell it, since the market was so bad. So needless to say, we started out rough and it didn't get much better as the years went by. We both got raises and promotions at work, but with more money we spent more. Then in 2012, we decided that it was best for me to stay at home with the kids. The only way we could do it was for me to sell my car and pay off a credit card. So we did it. We lived on less and at first we were doing a wonderful job at living frugally. But as Jason got more raises at work, we got more and more lazy with our money. Finally by January 2015, we were living pay check to pay check. Actually, some months we spent more than we made. It put a huge stress on mainly me, because I was in charge of the finances. I was doing a terrible job! That's when our church announced that they would be hosting a Dave Ramsey "Financial Peace University". At first, Jason didn't want to go. But I felt God placing a huge burden on my heart that we really needed to do this. The 2nd time I asked Jason, he said yes.
Wow, I cannot express to you how much this class has transformed our lives. All we needed was direction and a clear path to take and it did just that. We started our 1st budget in February. I cut our grocery budget tremendously by maintaining a monthly meal plan. I have been doing one main shopping trip a month. We have also budgeted our spending, gas and other areas. We went from living pay check to pay check in January to paying over $1400 a month in debt now. With our tax return (which was quite large this year because of an adoption credit) and Jason's bonus we paid off Katya's medical bills and another large debt. This month we paid off our van. We owed $10,000 on it in January. The van was paid off by living on a budget alone. Now we start on Jason's truck. It should be paid off next year and then we will start our 6 month expenses emergency fund. It is absolutely amazing the peace this class has brought to our lives. I highly recommend it.
Until next time!
-Donna
Wow, I cannot express to you how much this class has transformed our lives. All we needed was direction and a clear path to take and it did just that. We started our 1st budget in February. I cut our grocery budget tremendously by maintaining a monthly meal plan. I have been doing one main shopping trip a month. We have also budgeted our spending, gas and other areas. We went from living pay check to pay check in January to paying over $1400 a month in debt now. With our tax return (which was quite large this year because of an adoption credit) and Jason's bonus we paid off Katya's medical bills and another large debt. This month we paid off our van. We owed $10,000 on it in January. The van was paid off by living on a budget alone. Now we start on Jason's truck. It should be paid off next year and then we will start our 6 month expenses emergency fund. It is absolutely amazing the peace this class has brought to our lives. I highly recommend it.
Until next time!
-Donna
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