Budget

I'm reading a book... well listening to it really. It's "Total Money Makeover" by Dave Ramsey. During my time on the treadmill today, Dave quoted John Maxwell. "Having a budget is telling your money what to do rather than wondering where your money went." That's good stuff. I highly recommend anyone to read this book. He gets pretty harsh at times, but with so many people in so much debt we need a wake up call. One statistic I heard recently was that most Americans are within 6 weeks of bankruptcy. In other words if you lost your job today and couldn't find another right away, in 6 weeks you would be looking seriously at filing bankruptcy.

My wife and I found ourselves in a mess financially as our daughter was preparing her wedding. We used credit to dig ourselves into a huge hole over the past twenty years. We are now in the process of digging our way out. Anything we buy is purchased with cash. If we don't have it, we don't buy it. In order to pay off our creditors we had to do away with some things. The cable, house phone and house internet are all turned off. We get $10 a week allowance each. We now have grocery money, gasoline, car repairs, annual license fees, clothes, hygiene items all budgeted. Each week a certain amount goes in an envelope for each item. When that money is gone we are done spending. Anything left in an envelope the next week goes into a buffer fund.

We have such a peace that for the last several years was not present with us. We don't worry about whether there will be money for groceries or gas. We know what is there and that really does relieve a huge stress from both of us.

I don't have the time to tell you all we are doing to help with this, but if you are living on credit or from week to week, please get help before you find yourself in a huge hole, with no apparent way out. There are many books on the topic, and Dave Ramsey is one of the best.