My Total Money Make Over

Beginning today my finances are changing. I am having a Total Money Makeover and it is starting with my heart. I am going to "live like no one else, so later I can live like no one else." That's the motto in Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover book.

If you aren't familiar with him, Dave Ramsey is a nationally known financial guy who is also a Christian. He has a national radio show, and several books and seminars on getting and keeping your finances straight.

Using his plan, I have mapped out how I will be DEBT FREE in less than 4 years. That is my car, my credit cards, and, even, hold your breath please, MY STUDENT LOANS! I might even pull it off a little sooner as all that I wrote out I was VERY conservative with.

God has really been convicting me lately of how I manage my finances...which, as well all know, aren't really mine to begin with. Everything I have is the Lord's and He has seen fit to give it to me to steward. So far I am FAILING the stewardship test. Yeah, I tithe and even give a little more in offering and to missions....but what I do with the other 90% is NOT pleasing to God. With HIS help though and some serious self-discipline by August 2010 I will be financially solid - not only debt free but with an emergency fund on it's way to being fully funded.

As an aside about the Bible and finances 2 very interesting facts I learned in the last 2 weeks from 2 separate sources: 1) if you add up all the things Jesus said...just the red letter words in the Bible...the one's He actually spoke, 15% of all that he talked about dealt with money. 2) more than 800 verses in the Bible total speak to our finances. AMAZING! God knows that finances show the condition of our hearts and is trying desperately to get us to pay attention as well.

I STRONGLY recommend this book to EVERYONE. If you want to be normal (by American standards) then don't worry about reading it because normal is BROKE and you might as well not waste your time. But if you want to be able to break free and stop treading water pick it up today. You can get it on Amazon for $13.

Keep me accountable. Ask me how I'm doing. If you hear about me going out to dinner or spending $4 for coffee at Starbucks, gently or not so gently ask how that fits into my Total Money Makeover. I'll keep you all updated.

Oh, and if you think that this is going to be easy, or I just must not have that much debt to be rid of it in 3.5 years shoot me a message and I'll tell you what kind of money we are talking about. This is going to be anything but easy....but it IS DOABLE!!!!

Chewy Chewbacerson

Ok, so it drives Clay nuts when I call him that....but here he is....introducing....CHEWY!!! I love him :) He loves to swim. The other dog in these pictures is Amy's dog, Chloe. She was VERY patient with Chewy....obviously he LOVED her. He is an Australian Shepherd/Border Collie mix. His parents run cattle on a ranch in New Mexico. Chewy prefers the air conditioning or the pool.

If you can't say anything nice...

I am really, really tired of unsolicited, negative advice when I am trying to share something I am doing with people. I have come to the conclusion that it is human nature to point out all the flaws when we hear of someone else's plans or ideas. While there are many things that come to mind here are just a couple of examples for clarification.

1) Africa
The first time I started talking about going to Africa to work with AIDS orphans the OVERWHELMING response was "That is so dangerous! You could get AIDS or some other really bad disease." Amazing. I managed to make it through 7 years of higher education, but no one thought I had the brains to do some homework on the dangers of traveling to a third world country and working with people infected with HIV. And throw out the window completely that I went as an answer to the Lord's call to minister to these children. Forget that I was stepping out in faith trusting in my Creator and His sovereignty.

2) My puppy*
I have talked about and thought about getting a puppy for a couple of years now. When I finally did, all I heard was how much work they are, and how hard it will be for me. Huh? I thought they trained themselves, and were perfect angels all the time.

I know that all of these pieces of "advice" were offered because people care about me. But unless someone specifically ASKS your opinion about a given topic....PLEASE don't burst their bubble with all the things that are wrong with the idea. Have a little faith that they are smart enough to have considered all sides of the scenario before committing to their decision. No decision is 100% perfect, and everything we do has some consequences. But odds are, if someone of reasonable intelligence has made a choice about something, the good out weighs the bad enough to be worth while. And they don't need you raining on their parade.

*please note that on the puppy advice there were several friends and family whose advice I did seek out....and I am not directing this at them because that is the point of asking for advice. This is in response to things said after the decision was made from outside parties.

New Blog Lists

Ok so for those of you who use Blogger as your blog site, and you list out your friends' blogs on the side of the page like webpages....you should update to the new Blog List page element. It's really cool and gives snippets of the blogs.

Yeaaaah. I'm a dork.