Confidence in Finances
Finances are something that either you love to talk about or cringe. I am one of those who enjoys talking about finances. A few years back, I was introduced to this book “The Total Money Makeover” by Dave Ramsey. He’s a little famous, just FYI.
The book opened my eyes to a way of thinking. I always had some kind of rough budget. My husband and I use to think that if we could make the payment plan, we could get it. So we had loads of debt but didn’t look at it that way because we could make all the payments and still do all the things we wanted to do.
The big flaw in that, though, you never truly get ahead if you are just working on making your payments. In some cases, you are accruing interest, paying more for any said item that you bought, and you are never without payments and getting to the savings.
So when I learned about the debt snowball, and I went for it. Excitedly I told my husband my plan and showed him the neat little spreadsheet that I had made up. I got fired up! He took a little convincing but loved the idea of building up our retirement. So down the journey, we went.
Since the days of starting our debt snowball, I have become passionate about helping people get out of the chains of debt. I took a Financial coaching class and have shown people a plan and how budgets can be more freeing than confining.
The bible says that “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender” Proverbs 22:7 NIV ~Ouch! When I pondered over this particular verse, at first, I thought, “that’s a bit harsh,” but then I thought about how I felt every month having all our money go out to different payments. We even had a bed payment, the bed my husband and I slept on was bought on a terrific 0% financing for 12 months. I had a plan to pay it off in 12 months; the fact remained it was a payment we had to make every month not to incur penalties.
I thought about how right Proverbs 22:7 was, how we were slaves to the bank institutions. All the things I have read about debt tells me that it is terrible. Incredibly, I spent so much of my life in school, yet I had never really learned how money works and how important it was going to be to stay out of debt so that I can live more comfortably, save for retirement, and be generous to those in need.
These are things that I have seen people struggle with time after time in my financial coaching practice. It breaks my heart, seeing people feel so squeezed for money to make all their payments, they feel like they cannot even breath.
If you in the 78% of American families that are in debt, first know that you are not alone, second get help. You can read The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey, which is how I got started. You can take Financial Peace University, which is a great program. Or contact someone like me who does financial coaching and teaches you how to do a budget for your family.
I know this last bit sounds like sales, that’s not what we are going for. We get no kickback from Dave Ramsey, his sound advice though, will help you. Jesus wants us all to be free, and if you and your spouse are feeling squeezed by your finances, there is freedom from this. It takes some work and a change of mindset, but you too can be set free and have a sigh of relief when it comes to financial freedom.
