My Journey to Financial Peace

     "If you will live like no one else, later you can live like no one else!"- Dave Ramsey

         This is my journey to financial peace and becoming debt free. I am sure you all have heard me talk about Dave Ramsey over and over again like a broken record player, but if you ask me or my husband we will both say it has changed our lives completely. I know that probably sounds very cliche and I am a little obsessive but it is so true.
  My husband and I start our Financial Peace journey back in January through our church. We attend classes once a week to watch videos of Dave Ramsey speaking about becoming debt free. Since January my husband and I have paid off all our credit cards, saved our emergency fund and have almost completed our 6 months of expenses into our savings. I still cant believe we have been able to accomplish this in under a years time with only a one income household and had a baby in the middle of all of this. So you cant tell me this doesn't work and there is no way you can get of debt. We are a family of 5 with one income way under six figures. We are not trying to become rich, we just want peace of mind and a happy future.

Go to Dittle Dattle blog for a great way to build a Financial Organizer

    Now don't get me wrong this road is very rough and you are tempted everyday to veer off your path. Breaking all your old spending habits and sticking to your envelopes has been one of the toughest things to do. When you see all your friends going out and having fun and buying the newest technology right when it comes out, you get that itch so bad to join right in but when you don't have your envelope for that item or the cash to put in your envelope you just have to get left behind, for the moment.

                                "One definition of maturity is to delay pleasure"-Dave Ramsey

You see I may not have the money to go out and spend for the spur of the moment items but what I do have is my emergency fund. I have had to use my emergency fund and rebuild it a few times because we have had unexpected expenses like having to buy new tires or a broken down car to have to pay for. If it wasn't for our emergency fund we would be panicking and trying to figure out where that money was going to come from or put it on a credit card and get us into further debt.

Finally is how we learned to change our spending habits and save all that money for the emergency fund. This was done by the envelope system that my husband and I do religiously every month. We build an envelope for each one of our expenses like gas, groceries, eating out, etc. At the beginning of each month we fill all the envelopes with cash and use only that cash from each envelope to buy what we need. If we run out of cash in an envelope we cannot buy what we need. This really makes you think about what you are spending and if it is important.

Click on the photo for down loadable envelopes at Todaysnest.com

or

For designer cash envelopes

go to

Saving Money in Style

In conclusion, my husband and I have not reached the end of our financial peace journey and still have a lot of work to do but we are slowly getting to a place where peace of mind and complete debt free lives are just in arms reach. This program works wonders if you are willing to put in the discipline into changing the way you spend your money. I hope this blog has inspired you to find your own financial peace. Stay tuned for our financial updates on reaching our goals and finding financial peace.

p.s. Don't forget to make an envelope for Abby's TuTu Factory ;) LOL