Thanks Dave Ramsey, I get to buy a pig!

Over the past 6 months our family has been working through the “DAVE RAMSEY”
Financial Peace University program. At first, both my husband and I were skeptical.
Really, a 13 week course will change our lives? Whatever you say…
Basically, I was super surprised! I already knew I was a complete idiot about
money. What I didn’t know, is that it was easy to learn how to manage my/our money
better. Our biggest problem was Christmas, and summertime.
Christmas, well because it’s Christmas and who doesn’t love spending money at
Christmas. And the summers, when my stepdaughter is here we want to do
EVERYTHING.
So through this class, we learned how to budget our money. Dave Ramsey
stresses using an “ENVELOPE” system. So, each paycheck is divided up into envelopes.
An envelope for each expense, mortgage, eating out, gas, daycare, ect. And that is what
the money is used for and nothing else. So when the eating out envelope is empty.. .you
better find something at home to eat. Great concept, but I was still a bit skeptical.
The idea of keeping envelopes of CASH around made me a little jumpy. So, we
signed up for online software called MVELOPES. Basically the same concept, only
this is computerized. It works with our bank account and helps us assign our debit card
transactions to the appropriate envelope. Making it even easier to follow the budge plan..
There is an app for that!
So now, we are already putting money aside for Christmas shopping, and our
summer is already budgeted out. And we aren’t really cutting back on the fun… we just
are making sure we have the money for the fun.
Other than “holiday expenses” - One of the biggest struggles for me as a working mom,
is meal time. If I don’t plan ahead we end up with one of 2 options. Ordering in pizza,
or going to the grocery store every night. And that gets very expensive and very very
hard to budget. So the easiest way to save money… budget (duh) .. and the best way to
prevent me from grocery shopping every day is to buy in bulk!
So, when my good friend told me they were looking for someone to buy half a
pig, I was like… TOTALLY! I LOVE BUYING FARM ANIMALS.
So as I look at our budget I see that by August, we will definitely have enough
money saved up for the purchase of a pig. – Well, actually half a pig. With the money it
will save on grocery bills, I am super excited.
So, Thanks to Dave Ramsey, I get to buy a pig!