Timm and I have started going to weekly classes to get our butts in gear financially.
We went to a Dave Ramsey seminar shortly after Iris was born and we were inspired and motivated, but didn't know what to do and never made anything of it. Then around September or October of 2009 we met one-on-one with a financial counselor, trained by Dave Ramsey, worked the budget thing really well for a few months, but then we got our tax return and got lazy and let the budget fall by the wayside. We were able stretch our tax return and have a nice cushion of savings for about 6 months. Then we spent all of our savings purchasing the van, and from then on we've been struggling.
We've had so many opportunities to try to make things work out and we've not taken them.
And now we are barely making it paycheck to paycheck (and borrowing regularly from the bank to do so), not living extravagantly, but not disciplining ourselves in the least- just freaking out when the money isn't there when we need it. Luckily we don't have any credit cards in our name, so we haven't amassed massive debt, but we do count on our parents to help us fill in the gaps.
So now we have begun Ramsey's Financial Peace University class. 13 weeks, every Thursday.
I've decided to blog about our journey, hoping that it might help to keep us on track (or, at least, me anyway). I don't know if I will write after each class or after each homework assignment... or just whenever I need to get my head in line.
Me and numbers. Ugh. We've never had a good relationship, and here I find myself being the one in charge of the household budget (Timm "participates" but he'd much rather just leave it up to me and follow along. The control freak side of me appreciates that, but the math-illiterate side would rather have it the other way around)!
So, our homework for this week was to put together a "Basic Budget". Doesn't include absolutely everything (namely, it doesn't ask us to tally up all the debt that we AREN'T paying on- like a few student loans that we have put the blinders on for) just what we are actively paying each month.
Somehow we've managed to put together a balanced budget fairly easily (which makes me thing that we've done something wrong). We even have over $100 left over to use where we need it, or put in savings (which makes me thing we've DEFINITELY done something wrong)!
If we haven't been borrowing from the bank every paycheck and having to pay the bank back out of every paycheck, we should be doing ok on the money we have (ok, so I didn't factor in to this basic budget that we paid over $300 to Fifth Third this pay period. So this is really more of a "hypothetical basic budget". Maybe that's what I did wrong).
I want to say money sucks.
But Ramsey reminds us that (obviously) money is just money- neither good or bad.
So really, if I'm honest, I have to admit I am the one who sucks.
It can only get better!
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