The Why?

When starting on a new journey it's always good to start with the Why?. 

 

From 2002-2006 I attended Southern Polytechnic State University (long name I know).  I dated a smoking hot girl (now my wife) for most of my college career and she had a credit card.  My mom had always been against credit cards and never allowed me to have one, but I was a MAN now.  And as a MAN, I couldn't be without a credit card while my girlfriend showed me up.  Luckily, there were always companies on campus that were more than happy to give a broke college student with student loan debt a credit card...AND A FREE T-SHIRT OR WATER BOTTLE.  I signed on the dotted line and got a credit card JUST for "emergencies" and a free t-shirt.

THANK GOD they only gave me a $1,000 credit limit.  My "emergencies" turned out to be things like a new surround sound system.  Keep in mind, I lived in the on campus dorms, but I had a sound system that could shake the walls 10 doors down.  Real "emergency" huh?   I maxed this credit card out with "emergencies" so quickly I didn't even know what happened.

In 2006, my mom attended a crazy class at church called Financial Peace University by some guy named Dave Ramsey.  Financial principles based on Biblical truths.  She thought I could benefit from the material offered in this class so she gave me the audio CD's that came with her class kit.  I listened to all 13 discs in a matter of days and was hooked. 

Long story short...I paid off my credit card and cut it up.  My wife took a little more convincing, but once she saw it was working she followed suit.  When we graduated college in December 2006 we had a total student loan debt of $12,000 (all my debt).  We got really focused on eliminating this debt and paid it completely off in 2, yes 2, MONTHS.  We were DEBT FREE!

We then saved up a 6 month emergency fund and saved 20% to put down on our first home.  We are currently in the process of moving into a larger home since our family of 2 has become a family of 4 over the past 5 years, and our next goal is to pay off our home early and be COMPLETELY DEBT FREE.

I believe in this process so much that I trained with Dave Ramsey and his team in January 2009 to become a Certified Financial Counselor.  I have since worked with dozens of singles, couples and families 1 on 1 to better their financial situations. 

My WHY? for this blog is to be able to get the message out to a larger audience.  God has a plan for your money that works. 

Most of what you'll find here are Biblical truths about money and life, along with my opinions and stories about the same.  Thanks for reading and I hope you come back.

Proverbs 22:7 - The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender.