Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Financial Peace University

My family has been committed to attend a Financial Peace University seminar at our church for the past 13 weeks. All of the lessons have been beneficial with excellent information and Dave Ramsey's no-nonsense motivational style of teaching. I think I benefited the most from gaining a better understanding about financial topics that were intimidating to me before. Granted, some of the information was not new to me at all, but Dave has a knack for making you think "Wow, that really makes financial sense. I would be stupid not to do that." It was the kick-in-the-pants we needed to do it, not just learn about it.

Since the course began, we've been able to pay off a student loan and a credit card, and have begun to apply those payments to a personal loan. We've set aside $1000 in a baby emergency fund, and I've created an allocated spending plan for all of our income to within $1. We are paying cash for several expense categories, namely groceries, entertainment, personal and miscellaneous spending, and blow money. Other categories have been created in our checking and savings accounts to build up funds for things like Christmas, vacation, car repair and homeschool supplies, to name a few.

Tonight's lesson was definitely my favorite... the lesson on giving. If I was not motivated before tonight (and believe me, I was), this lesson has inspired me even more to build wealth so that we can give, give, give. And out of that giving comes blessing. But as Dave pointed out, the Hebrew term for blessing does not refer to monetary wealth... instead the word literally means "peace". And I cannot imagine a richer way to live than to have a life filled with God's abundant peace.

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