Choices

Hi, friends! I'm back from my blogging break! Exciting times have happened yet again for the Pennies Family. A little while ago, we purchased a "new to us" car. This has been an expensive year: a new house, a new couch, a new computer, and a new car.

"You're a stay at home mom! Your husband teaches! How can you afford all of these things?!" Well, friends. It's like this. We made a choice several years ago to be done with payments. Life is too short to suffer death by a thousand cuts. We made a choice to be intentional with our money. And it has paid off. So yes, with the exception of the house, we paid for them all in cash.

I've written a couple of posts similar to this one before, but the lesson bears repeating. We don't do payments. We follow the Dave Ramsey plan. 

Here's a refresher of Dave's famous Baby Steps: 

1. Establish an emergency fund of $1,000. This amount isn't supposed to sustain your family for a LONG time. This is to help motivate you to clear all your other debt.

2. Get rid of all debt!!! List your debts smallest to largest and put any extra money towards your smallest debt. This is what's known as the debt snowball approach. Studies have shown this method tends to be more successful and effective than the "avalanche" approach.  Let's linger here for a second. What is considered debt?

-Student loans

-Credit cards

-HELOC (Home Equity Line of Credit) - a fancy way of saying a second mortgage. 

-401K loans

-IRS debt

-Car payments

Dave's plan wants you to get rid of ALL debt. Yes. ALL of it. 

3. Build an emergency fund up of three to six months worth of expenses

3b. Save enough money for a down payment on a house. 

**Baby steps 4, 5, and 6 are done simultaneously**

4. Save 15% of your income towards retirement

5. Fund college savings

6. Pay extra towards your mortgage to pay it off early. 

Lastly, Baby Step 7: Live and give like no one else. 

Now, if you've been paying attention at all, you have read that we do have a mortgage. This is the one area Dave Ramsey doesn't yell at you about because it is such a huge expense. We had more than 20% for a down payment. We purchased a modest home in a nice neighborhood. We still have some home repairs we would like to do, but we're prioritizing. We are choosing to wait to get some more things with our house done.  

Really, I think that's what our lifestyle is all about: choices. If you think about it, that's what all of our lifestyles are about- what we choose. Matthew 6:21 tells us that, "For where you treasure is, there your heart will be also." Do you want to know what's of value to you personally? Look at your bank statements. Where's all your money going? That will show you where you priorities are.

I can't answer questions for you about your own spending habits and your own budget. I'm only speaking from experience here. For us, we choose to budget for things in our future. We know we will have to replace cars, so we save for them. We decided to get a new couch, so we used money we had set aside for this purchase. Did we pick my favorite couch that we saw that day? Nope. Did we pick one in our budget (and that would hide toddler stains pretty well)? Yes. 

Are we perfect budgeters and never mismanage a dime? Goodness no. Summer Break aka Budget Break just ended. I find it increasingly harder to stay within our budget over summer break!

Do I think I'm a better person for budgeting? Oh my goodness no! I write about this topic because I remember how stressed we were without even realizing how stressed we were! I write about this topic because we don't make a ton of money, but we can still work together to save for the future and live below our means. If I can help out one person, then I consider it a success!

Communicating with your spouse about your plans for your money and your future as a couple plays a major role in this. You are choosing to be intentional with your family's money for your family's future. What could be more powerful than that?!