Despite the fact Season 4 has the WORST angel ever in Shelley Hack, Farrah makes her final appearances, and this season has some of my favorite episodes.
Loft Gift Cards
Chocolate Riesens
Bissinger Bear Claws
Financial Peace starts next Monday. We are so excited. We have 51 people signed up. I will keep you posted as the class goes along as to how things are going, and if there are any specific prayer requests. Here is Part 3 of The Miller's* Financial Peace story (*last name changed)...
Despite, the job issues, our family received some financial windfalls (which frequently happen once you start the program), and early in 2007, we paid off both our cars. “Traction” was now on our side and now that we were debt-free, but the house, and we decided to keep going and save 3-6 months of our income as an emergency fund. We agreed that we would “stop” after the 3rd baby step. We couldn’t imagine ever paying off our house.
About mid 2007, a funny thing happened. Our family found we had more time. Tim and I had long since stopped arguing about money and budget committee meetings only lasted a short time. We weren’t shopping near as much or taking time figuring out what to buy. I think we gained about 5-7 hours a week. During this time, we really cut back on expenses - by really practicing some “super-saver” techniques that we will share during the class - and started shoveling all available funds toward the emergency fund.
Another wonderful thing happened. We agreed to always, no matter what, to ensure we were regularly giving 10% of our income at church. We believe is a key ingredient in where we are financially today. We believe, in order to “have/get” money, you have to be willing to “give” money. This was a new belief system for us at the time, but one that we later realized is steeped in Biblical principles and really patterned after Christ “giving all” for us on the cross.
During 2007, I was given the opportunity to donate a kidney. The fact that the emergency fund was growing steadily and we were on a financial plan was a key stabilizer in that situation. Tim asked me if I would have given the kidney if our financial situation had not stabilized. I really can’t answer that, because it was stabilized at the time and I felt very much in synch with my husband about our financial goals. However, I do know that finances were not an issue in the decision making that went into that process.
By the end of 2007, a 3-month emergency fund was in place. What did we do next? We decided that a Christian education was important to us. So we took a slight detour off the baby steps and decided we would save all the school tuition next so that we would never have to worry about that.
After we recovered from the kidney operation in early 2008, our family was looking around for something to do – remember we have all this time on our hands because we are totally in synch about money and not really focusing on buying things.
We decided to get involved in Helping Hands and really try to define and lead that organization at Good Shepherd.
2008 continued along just fine. The Lutheran school tuition fund was growing along at a steady pace. Here’s a true story: One night we decided to take some friends out to dinner for something they did for us and we actually couldn’t find Red Lobster in Fairview Heights because we hadn’t been out to dinner in so long. We laughed so hard.
Now the story really gets good. The unthinkable happens. The company I worked for, Anheuser-Busch, gets bought out in mid-2008. Something no one ever could have imagined. Although unsettling, our family has financial peace, so we know that no matter what happens, we are going to be fine financially. We have no debt and our emergency fund is well-funded.
In December 2008, I do get laid off. We give more praise to God for giving us a “dress rehearsal” in May of 2005. Now we are prepared mentally, financially and most importantly, spiritually, for what happened.
Financial Peace University starts in 2 short weeks. After our first orientation we have over 20 people signed up. To show the benefits of FPU, I have been sharing one couple's story. Here is part 2 of "Our FPU Story- The Miller's" (last name changed). Remember, this is a couple who leads Financial Peace at their church. I have broken it up into 4 parts.
In January 2006, we had our first budget committee meeting and he had to participate. So no more would it be my fault that there wasn’t enough money. We agreed that we would talk to each other first, no matter what, if we wanted to spend outside the agreed upon categories. Only if we were both in agreement before the spending occurred, could we buy the item. We found there was a small amount to start plunking on the car debt.
We also started on the envelope system right away. I had previously tried about 10 different methods of trying to portion money out for the month and this is the only method that has worked for us.
Invariably, it happened. He wanted to buy something or I wanted to buy something that wasn’t in the budget for that month. He called me right away. I think he wanted to go to a Chinese buffet. “What envelope is that going to come out of?” I said. We didn’t have an envelope for eating out. We had agreed not to put it in the budget. “Right….” He said. We ate at home. I wanted a chair that someone at work had up for sale. I called him – “Can we take it out of the car fund?” “No.” he said. So now I am minus a chair that I really didn’t need. And so forth.
A few months down the road, we wanted to increase the amount we were putting toward the car fund. We had an emergency budget committee meeting and started cutting out things we previously thought we couldn’t. Taking the initial step to cut out those things was much more painful than actually doing without them. After a brief time we didn’t miss them at all.
Then, in May 2006, the unthinkable happened – almost. I was almost fired from my job. It took almost six months for the incident to “blow over” at work, during which the family (but mostly me – as in I was the one that needed it) went through a spiritual growth spurt. I started to look at Christ to define me, and not my job. I started thinking of daily blessings as coming from Christ and not Anheuser-Busch. Prior to May 06, my thinking was so skewed that I used to “joke” that, “my daily bread comes from Anheuser-Busch.” Now I was starting to realize that these kinds of statements are not a joke – they were the start of heading into some serious spiritual issues! But, thankfully, God gave me some discipline in that regard! And the Dave Ramsey program took on more significance.
Part 3 next week...
Great Boot Camp Workout!
Great for Improving Flexibility
Great for Toning those trouble spots
Sister Bear
Yes, Brother Bear has gotten new boots since this pic with Uncle Buddy was taken. He doesn't have to wear Sister Bear's boots anymore.
I like December snowflakes.
I prefer January snowflakes.
In just a few short weeks, Mike and I will once again be leading Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University at our church. If early registration is any indication, we could have 75 people participate. Awesome. To get prepped for the class, I decided I would share one couple's story over the next several weeks. They lead FPU at their church across the river...(*last name has been changed)
Our FPU Story – The Millers*
“Income” – how much money you bring in, (or your financial shovel); and “outgo” – how much money you spend are the two constants in everyone’s financial equation. We don’t make a million bucks, but income has never really been the issue for us.
We know that, especially in this economy, lots of people are losing jobs or having their income reduced. I think Financial Peace will give you some new perspectives about income as well as outgo. But our story focuses more on planning, organization and re-thinking priorities versus coming up with new income sources.
Just because income hasn't really been our issue, doesn’t mean we were good at handling money. In truth, we were terrible at it. Turn back the clock 3 years ago. We always had too much month at the end of the money. We had little savings, and at times, no savings. We were always putting essentials like gas on a credit card because we never had enough in the checking account. We didn’t give an offering more times than I would like to admit. We sometimes couldn’t buy groceries when we needed them. It seemed like something unexpected was always coming up – like the kids needed school supplies – and it was a struggle to find the money. Since I did the bills, Tim would say to me, “Why don’t we have money for this?” Invariably it would turn into an argument. It got to the point I felt I was walking on eggshells around him about money, because it seemed like it was always my fault there wasn’t enough.
So it was surprising to me when, one day, he came home from work and said, “We make enough money, we should have our cars paid off.” I laughed. “No way,” I said. “We barely have enough to cover all the bills and we usually have to hold off on groceries. And we don’t even know how we will pay for Good Shepherd when Eli is ready for kindergarten.” But the Holy Spirit was working. What Tim said stuck with me. So a few days later, I said to him, “Let’s say I agreed with you about paying off the cars. How do you propose we go about paying off these cars, huh? Where would you get the money?” He told me to listen to Dave Ramsey on the radio on the way home from work and he had these things called the baby steps that showed you how to do it. That’s all he said. So I started listening. Soon after that we started on the baby steps.
To be continued...
Does any of this sound familiar? If so, consider taking Financial Peace University. It is not easy, but it does work. It really makes you think about what is really important. What the real priorities are. I will post more of this story next week because it is fairly lengthy.
No, that's not me.
