Got Financial Peace!

Lemme tell you a little story about a young Texas couple, we will call them Kevin and Laura, and their financial peace.  It certainly didn't start that way. And if I am being honest, I don't really want to talk about it. It certainly didn't start out peacefully. 

Before they...I can't continue to refer to myself in third person so SURPRISE!!! It is about us.... Before we took Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University class when it was offered through Pape-Dawson Engineers when I still worked there, I couldn't imagine the words "financial" and "peace" in the same sentence.  The thought of talking about finances or money made me ill, defensive and sometimes terrified.  We were a mostly one income family and our priorities about how we spent our money were not in line.  To discuss it usually led to a not so civil debate about the value of poker night, NFL network and extra tech compared with dinners out, nice cars and nice clothes.  This might scare you, but it turns our we didn't need any of those things and decided that until we could pay for everything with cash, we needed to stop spoiling ourselves. 

We didn't deserve that break.  What we did deserve was four walls and a roof over our head (with utilities), food to feed our family, clothing (not necessarily fashion) and transportation(not necessarily a car).  When we took the class we were at the end of an era where we were paying for everything on our credit card to collect reward points and "paying off the balance" at the end of every month.  But that plan wasn't really a plan.  It was a way to not address the problem.  We had credit, so the card ALWAYS worked even if the check at the end of the month didn't cover it. Little by little our debt racked up and in the meantime WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!!! Yay us! right?!

Not including the house, we had over $30,000 in debt.  Ours wasn't the highest in the class and the class total debt to begin was over $1,000,000 for 40 families.  It was a good place to start, with a real interest to improve a real problem with a room full of other financial delinquents. After just one class I knew our life would be different forever.  After two classes we had money in a savings account, you know for emergencies.  It was the first time we had any plan for an emergency rather than to just put it in with all the other debt on our credit card.  Are you surprised?  Did you have us pegged, as people who are good at math, to be people who should have been better about balancing outcome vs. income?  Well we are human and chances are so are you.  THINGS are so tempting.  And also STUFF.  We liked stuff and we like to go out to eat more than we liked to eat at home. 

Things changed.  Again I don't know what really turned it around the most.  Was it the fear that we would never start a college fund for our kids, or never be able to stop working to death or were we just ready to finally grow up.  The Dave Ramsey baby steps are simple.  His presentation is both intelligent and hilarious!  His fame is not because he is smart.  In fact I bet you already know 80% of the things he teaches that pertain to getting out of debt.  He is a riot of a speaker.  I still laugh every time I listen to him at FPU or entreleadership and I have heard both spiels multiple times.
If you practice what he teaches it take the average family between 2-3 years to get out of debt everything but the house.  Can you imagine that? Kevin and I are exceptional so it took us 5 years.

We facilitate the class together at Journey Fellowship.  It is a volunteer position.  No Dave Ramsey does not pay us nor have I been paid to write this or fill the class.  This is just my personal testimony.  The class changed my life and perhaps saved our marriage and I highly recommend it even to people who aren't in debt.  You can register for the class by clicking here and following the directions there.  We have had many great friends go through our class and have made more great friends as facilitators.

So now my (not necessarily) The Top 6 reasons you should sign up for the Force led FPU class at Journey Fellowship this Fall:
6. If you and your spouse ever fight about money,
5. If you regularly pay for things with Visa, Mastercard or American Express,
4. If watching an episode of Hoarders prompt some frightening self reflection,
3. If the word "budget" terrifies you,
2. If you want to understand why and how to invest for your retirement and lastly,
1. If you are ready to live like no one else so later you can LIVE like no one else and also GIVE like no one else.

And finally, as a somewhat related aside.  I never gave up my desire to get nice things.  I just really redirected my expectations and now I find what I want on a regular basis at Texas Thrift Store on 99 cent Mondays with a 30% off coupon.  If I buy items that are the color of the Monday which is generally blue I get them for 99 cents.  If they aren't blue I get them for 30% off of the thrift store price and then kids books are buy 4 and get 1 free and the 30% off coupon works for them too (regular price is 69 cents).  Look what I scored today.  These are just a couple of photos I thought I would share.  I also got gymnastics leotards for both girls and a few small plates because I liked them.  I still like stuff.  This purse was less than $5

And then I got all of these books, 15 of them for $5.76

 

Hey, Are You Still With Me?

Well, I have taken an almost two year break from publishing on this blog.  Honestly I thought it was longer.  I just looked at photos from my last blog post and Oh my goodness! my cute kiddos have grown so much since then.  We have lost teeth, learned to ride bikes, excelled in soccer, tried dance, started school a couple of times too among other things.  So there, that is kinda the last two years in a nutshell.  Well, my readership is very quaint, so I know you all know that so much more has transpired during that time, but let's talk about now. 

Raise your hand if you thought I was crazy when I said that Kevin and I had made the choice to homeschool our children.  OK, our choice was well thought out, deliberated and finally sort of encouraged by our oldes,t who was just having repeated heartbreak on a daily basis at school.  Her heartbreak wasn't the only factor, just the deciding one. 

I spent a bit of time during Spring and Summer reading about homeschooling, unschooling, rules and regulations. I went to the FEAST (Family Education alliance of South Texas) homeschool curriculum book fair in May and was flooded with information that made me feel underwater. Were we going to be traditional, classical, unit study or living books homeschoolers?  Which curriculum would we use?  Would we choose one company for all or spread it around?  Or use none of the above and totally wing it with what life threw at us. Well one thing for sure that I did know was that I always want learning to be a joy. And I want our homeschool to be so much more than public school at home. So I guess that is two things then...

The most fun thing I found at FEAST was SimplyFun. I started my little play as a SimplyFun playologist. SimplyFun's call is to build smarter kids and stronger families through play. I saw these games and knew I had to have them for our family. Who doesn't love some family play time that can also be educational?

  I was drawn to the game, Sumology, first because I love math (if you didn't know) and to Let's Drive second because I love road trips, but feel fairly deficient in geographic knowledge of the northern USA.  I signed up to start sharing these games with friends and family that I thought might like to play to learn like us. Now I am hosting parties for friends who get to earn free games and I am making new friends. The kids and I got to go to the SimplyFun convention for playologists in Las Vegas where the kids all got a Tibbar rabbit for playing so well while mommy learned more about new games and sharing. So that's new.
 
And here we are in the second week of actual planned and scheduled homeschool.  Ultimately we chose to start somewhat with a traditional textbook approach for math using the A Beka curriculum.  Addie is moving along swiftly in her math so far.  Many mornings she is up and at 'em by 6:30 cracking her math book and trying to work ahead.  She is moving through these lessons at almost double speed.  We chose A Beka for math pretty much because I knew it didn't suck and I found it for $5 at a book swap.  AND eventually a friend passed more A Beka along for language arts and then another for reading.  So we are doing some traditional homeschooling using A Beka.  We have not chosen a curriculum for science, but we are currently studying the ocean and specifically sea turtles.  We have many books by scholastic that we found at our friendly neighborhood thrift store to support this endeavor along with a great book from the library and a movie on netflix.  Addie and I drew sea turtles together yesterday.

That was SUCH a learning experience for both of us. Did you know that Addie is not perfect?  She sometimes forgets.  We got started by tracing a circle, but when the next step called for a free hand leaf shape for the body that was pretty much symmetrical, she lost it.  I mean she had a total meltdown and my patience was being challenged too.  This was supposed to be a fun artsy break for my artsy girl that also tied into what we had been studying. When she couldn't get that body perfect in her eyes, it was like the world was going to end.  We tried to keep moving forward, but it was as if she were possessed.  This joyful fun girl was being brought down by an imperfect leafy sketch. REALLY!!!

 

Eventually, she threw herself down on her bed in her room and mourned her shortcomings. Next she came back to get her paper and pencil and brought it back to her room as if I were the reason she couldn't draw a perfect turtle. And then like magic, 15 minutes later, she re-appeared and was smiling. She gave me a hug and told me she loved me and finished her turtle.  What a struggle!  This is going to continue to be a learning challenge I know.  We navigated it for the first time and I expect not the last, but ultimately she was pretty pleased and easy on herself when it didn't look exactly like the example we were following steps from.  I told her it was perfect and she is now proud because she did it all by herself.  She did identify things she wishes she did differently and wants to draw another one to send to her Grandma Prewitt.

 

Emaleigh is also homeschooling with us. She is working primarily on writing. We have write-on place mats for her to practice writing letters and numbers and she has also learned to write her name.

 She can spell the names of everyone in our family.  Her daddy was so impressed with her at bed time last night that she kept asking for more tasks to show him her brilliance.  At bed time...I was exhausted but she was so cute giggling as she ran out of the room to go do something to impress her daddy. 

 

The girls started gymnastics last Friday which I honestly think if you ask them, it is better than candy and probably the only thing we now have take away power with for Emaleigh :)

 

So what about Red? maybe you are asking yourself.  Well that lucky duck got a homeschool pass because he is at James Masters Elementary in first grade with the best teacher EVER, Mrs. Gallegos-Perez.  She is amazing and we love her.  She was Addie's teacher for both kinder and first grade.  We love her because she obviously has a heart for the job she is doing.  She loves her students but even when it was just Addie in her class she started a relationship with Lucas and Emaleigh and has always been encouraging to all of our kids.  She teaches the kids to their level and challenges them appropriately rather than choosing a class pace based on the weakest link.  I just always loved that if Addie could do what Mrs. Perez was asking, then she changed it to something a little more difficult.  For me, she actually promoted growth rather than "good enough"  So Lucas is still in public school.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? Here they are on the first day of school.  I love how Addie wore the tie dye.  That would never go at her public school.

 

Well Kevin just got home about an hour ago and told the kids they needed to eat dinner and take a nap or there would be no circus this evening.  I just noticed that there are empty plates and all three kids and one dad are napping so I am going to go grab a moment of peace.  Maybe I will read a book I like.  Have a Happy weekend.

San Antonio RnR, Take Two

I had a great race on Sunday.  My training hasn’t been all as good as it was last year so I was worried about my ability to run the entire race.  I did finish it without walking.  I ran slowly J.  My great cheerleaders were present again with the addition of one more.  My mom was able to watch and cheer me on this time.  It really means a lot to me to get to see them on the course three times.  Kevin is a super star for getting them up early and strategically placed for the most cheering opportunities.  He’s the real rockstar. The spirit of the race is incredible.  I am so glad to have been introduced to this.  I nearly cried so many times for so many reasons, but ultimately I was very happy with my morning.  Anybody want to join me for a race in Dallas?  Dad, you want to do New Orleans with me?

 

SpookOut Soccer, Part 2

Mnoci's Fall Festival, Playtime!

Incredible Halloween

Spookout Soccer in Round Rock Texas