I'm a junky

I finally have a minute to check blogs. I have officially spent almost 3 hours catching up on everyone's blogs. I still have more work to do, but I've at least made some headway. I read Jenny's stories forever.

Our life has been busy lately with budgeting. We are taking a Financial Planning class from Dave Ramsey. It has been so wonderful for our marriage! For the first time we are on the same page of the same book. I'm a little scared to say, so as not to jinx it, that we have prepared a budget together and been following it for the first time ever. Scary, huh? The whole thing started one day in the grocery store. I was writing a check, and then the thought occured to me, what if we don't have the money to cover this? I don't remember why I was worried about it at that exact moment, but I do know that I felt completely clueless about our finances. We have tried for 12 years to do a "budget" but always failed miserably. We have tried about 5 different methods, so you can see that we truly have tried. Nonetheless it never worked because we always had different goals.

Later that day when I came home Micah miraculously asked me if I would help him again with the budget. I saw this as nothing less than God's direction. Twice in one day??? Had to be HIM. I agree but was extremely afraid. In the past I have been EXTREMELY controlling of the budget. I know that IS SO HARD to believe. :) But it is true. I expressed that to him, but he still wanted my help. I prepared a budget. We asked our small group friends to pray for us. They did. Some of those same friends started a Dave Ramsey class. We ignored it thinking another budgeting siminar couldn't possibly help us. We kept asking them to pray for us. They did. We googled budgeting software. Dave Ramsey. Hmmm...Total Money Makeover...Hmmm...We watched a clip of one of his classes....Hmmm....He came on TV....Hmmm...Our friends invited us to their class....We were trying desperately to follow the budget we had prepared, but went "-" in every category....We got desperate...Well, you can see what happenend.

So, May is our first official Dave Ramsey "cash flow" month. I am saying this to ask everyone who reads this to say a prayer for us. We really need it. I have been amazed at what God has enabled us to do. Micah has taken his lunch to work now more than he eats out. I am so proud of him. I spend a lot of money on milk. It's the one pure, whole food we eat. (We drink RAW milk for those that don't know-we're weird). He only charges $6.50 a gallon, but you know it adds up. At any rate, other than milk, eggs, and beef I have been spending $67 a week on groceries. That is a miracle. I told the kids that before DR there was a week I spent $200 on the same items. Wow! It is so easy to "justify" junk food purchases when you have kids.

Anyway, our goals are to pay off debt, and get an emergency savings built up. Eventually there will be other goals, but for now that is overwhelming. I think the biggest difference between this class and others we have attended is that he really gets to the heart issue of the money. He addresses that first, and the cash flow plan (it's not a budget!) is secondary. He stresses that you HAVE to follow the plan you have set out, but he really deals more with why.