Financial Peace

We just graduated from Financial Peace University, a 9 week class on Biblical personal finances.  Dave Ramsey, who teaches in the video segments is known for his stance on debt, it all bad get rid of it.  Debt snowball and Baby steps are a few of his tag lines.  Honestly I wasn't sure what I would get out of the class since we live debt free and have only in the last year gotten a mortgage.   But I have to say I was impressed and entertained by the weekly class and we have changed the way we do our finances.

A Budget:  Somehow I never connected before this class of a budget being very specific.  We have had a family budget for most of our marriage but it was very generic so it never seemed applicable.  The main homework of this class is to make a monthly budget each month specific to that month and stick to it.  So for March our budget included new clothes and a haircut, in addition to each of us having blow money to use as we please.  It was so freeing to get my haircut and know we had the money set aside for it and at the same time, money was still going into our long term savings plans.

Using Cash:  I had heard about this from many people and wasn't sure it was for me.  Dave says, using cash makes you feel a purchase by handing over the actual cash instead of just swiping a card.  Its also easier to watch your spending when you use cash because when its gone, its gone.  I have started using the envelop system that comes with the class kit, so my cash is divided out in the categories I have pre-planed to spend it.  It gives our money purpose and we know where its going better than we did before.

I went in to the class wondering, "If we are already debt free, what will dave teach us?"  The biggest take away for us was how we communicated about our money and getting on the same page for financial goals.  And that has brought us "Financial Peace."