I was able to send 200 more dollars to our ING account. Our new total is 1000 dollars, 5% of our goal. You can check the Network for our newest chart.
We are going to start Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University at our church. I am going to be the FPU coordinator, and I am totally excited. I have only read Dave’s books and listened to his show, so it will be cool to get all the info and to see him on DVD. If you have never heard of Dave, I STRONGLY suggest that you give his site a look. DaveRamsey.com.
I thought that it would be cool to take a look at the “stages” of my personal finance growth:
| NCN Grows Up | |
| Age | Ideas About Money |
| 0-6 | Do NOT put quarters in mouth… Do NOT put quarters in mouth! |
| 6-12 | Allowance? Parents Source of All Income (Birthday Money!) |
| 12-16 | Odd Jobs In Neighborhood. Spend It All (�?�Coolness�?� Need Develops) |
| 16-19 | Minimum Wage Jobs. Girls, girls, girls. Savings? HAH! |
| 19-22 | Real Job, Marriage, First Child. Borrow, borrow, borrow. |
| 22-25 | Just work, spend, borrow. New Autos. Some Retirement. |
| 25-29 | Hmmm…I MIGHT want to think about the future… Broke with Lots of Stuff |
| 29-31 | No more borrowing. Get out of debt. Get educated. |
| 31-Present | Saving Money. Focused on investing. Future looks bright. Learning! |
A few thoughts. Growing up, my parents never really discussed money, except to maybe say “yes” or “no” when we asked for something. I knew that we were not wealthy, and I knew that we struggled from time to time. I have only had one instance in my “adult” life where I know that I added an extra financial burden to my parents. (If you’ve listened to my podcast, you know the story about how I couldn’t pay for a car my dad had co-signed for when I was 17. He got stuck with the payments. I felt terrible. I have since rre-payeded him in full. He calls his payment “my grandkids”!). Other than that, I have worked since I was 14 years old. I paid my for my own lunches at school, bought my own clothing, paid for my gas, etc. I moved out of my parents home at 18, back in at 19, and back out at 20. I paid for what little college education I have. I do remember calling my dad when I got my first “real” job at age 21, and saying to him, “How am I going to spend all this money?”. Classic. My dad just laughed. After getting married a few months later, and having our first child 2 years later, I found out exactly how I would spend that money. We have ALWAYS lived pay-check to pay-check, especially from ages 22-29. In reality, we lived NEXT pay-check to pay-check. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, so to speak. Somewhere around 3 to 4 years ago, the light STARTED to come on, but it really clicked for us last April. That was when we really FOCUSED on getting out of debt and saving money.