LWM

Financial Peace of Mind is possible.

Ten years ago my wife & I left our previous jobs for a fresh new start. We had no money, no assets, and no real belongings. We owned a house in Oregon but there were no jobs there so we settled in Arizona.

We took out a loan on our home here and ran up our credit cards over the years buying things like furniture, cloths, food... you know, and all those things we think we need to survive. Purchased a couple of new cars using those great car loans and before we knew it we were like most of America... In Debt!

Last fall our church was offering a financial program sponsored by Dave Ramsey called the Financial Peace University and they wanted $100 to participate. As a person in debt I really did not have $100 to spend on a class so I put off the registration until the last day when another couple in the church told us they were going and we thought we would give it a try.

Well let me start by saying that was the best $100 I ever spent! I have wasted a lot of money and many worthless things over the years but this class was money well spent.

On this forum I talk about a lot of things Jeep but I thought I would take a few minutes and blog on money for a while. I think money is something we all use and I know that my wife & I cannot be the only ones who struggle to make ends meet from time to time.

My plan is to share over the next few blogs some of the tools we learned while going throw the Financial Peace University and other tools I have picked up along the way to Financial Peace of mind.

I will start be telling you where I started and over the next few blogs show you where we are a year later...

Last October we had a mortgage (like so many others), approximately $15,000 in credit card debt, $16,000 in auto loans and the never ending monthly expenses like utilities, cable, cell phone, newspaper, gas, food & everything else that a normal family of four has.

A normal family of four has debt and we had plenty of debt. Today the picture is different but I do not want to get ahead of myself quite yet. Stop back for my next post and I will start to share how we changed from being underwater to enjoying a nice day at the lake.