Financial Peace

We are in the 6th week of FPU with Dave Ramsey. It is going pretty well so far. I think it has really shown us how much money we spend waste. We don't go exactly by the rules, but for the most part we do. If that makes sense. Basically you should work with a zero balanced budget. Meaning you should budget spending all your money for the month (like Dave does) or like me and by pay period. I just found it a lot easier that way. I have this whole Excel spreadsheet I made for our budget. It is probably a little too nit picky, but I like it and it shows EVERY $ we spend, what we bought (I don't put down every item we buy, like the time when we made our fist trip to the grocery store after doing the budget and spent $279!!) I about had a stroke!

Another one of Dave's tips is the envelope system. You should pay cash for certain items like gas, food, clothing, etc. Each category would have a envelope with a beginning balance and you would simply deduct each time you used money from that envelope. I do basically the same thing, but with my debit card. I have a couple of categories. Clothing/Entertainment, Groceries, Gas, & Eating Out. I just keep up with everything in Excel instead of the envelope.
Sometimes I feel so overwhelmed with this whole budget thing. We are not in debt. We just don't save like we should and we waste money. So why I am stressing so bad? I am to the point where I feel bad when I buy something (even though it's budgeted) or I don't even want to buy anything-which is strange. I guess in the long run I just want to control OUR money and not OUR money control us! That is what I want to accomplish from this whole Financial Peace class.
Sometimes I just wish life were a little bit easier and I don't worry about the little things so much.

Financial Peace

Sunday we will start Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University at our church. I have wanted to do this program for awhile now. To be honest I am a little nervous. The past couple of times I have been out doing some mindless shopping the thought came across my mind that I probably wouldn't be able to do this much longer. Now we aren't in huge debt. We have typical/common debt...our home, my car, and chads truck (which is almost paid for) and now paying for our new heating and air unit (which I hope to pay off with our tax return). That's all. No credit cards, which I am very happy to say. I think our biggest problem is mindless spending, mostly EATING OUT. Sometimes Chad will eat out everyday of the week Monday-Friday (Breakfast & Lunch)!! That really starts to add up!! One time I added up or food costs, and we spent close to $400 in food not including groceries!! Another problem we have is Saving. We very rarely put money in our savings account and if it gets put in there I am the one to do it. I think the biggest problem is that is such a hassle to transfer the money. We bank at one place and save at another.
The past couple of weeks I have been aggravating Chad about the class. About how, "Dave is going to get him." I guess we will see who he actually gets.

There is a little fact on the website. It says "Over 650,000 families have completed FPU with amazing success. On average they pay off $5,300 in debt and save $2,700 in just 13 weeks!!"

I hope and pray we are average!!