I think we are on our way!

First off, if you are reading this and you can qualify yourself as my immediate friend or family please don't worry or fret about the things I'm about to write about.  We are okay, have been okay and will continue to be okay.  But that is all we have been....just okay.  Let's just say we are finally getting our act together with our finances!  

A few months ago a good friend of ours mentioned that financial guru, Dave Ramsey, was coming to our area and would be speaking live.  She and her husband are going and they wanted GG and I to come along.  I was excited.  They have been through the Financial Peace University and are now facilitators of their own FPU group.  I mentioned it to GG at the time and he kind of scoffed at the suggestion.  I gave it a few months.  I brought it up again and he still resisted.  He said he was not interested in going to hear someone tell him something he already knew about what to do with money.  My question was "then why aren't we doing it??"  

A few weeks ago our FPU friends gave us Dave Ramsey's "The Total Money Makeover" book.  Their way of "paying it forward" and a gift to us.  I was thrilled and started reading immediately.  While they were afraid of pushing their boundaries with GG, I told them to not worry about it, that he would be fine.  I mentioned that to him and he reminded me that he is an information gatherer and one that will read just about anything to learn something (so what's wrong with listening lol).   On that note, I insisted that we sit down and figure out a budget, get our bills together and get going on a plan to get out of debt.  We set a date...Labor Day weekend.

Fast forward to Labor Day weekend.  We did some labor, had some rest and then got down to business.  We have always been current on all of our bills and over the years I have had various plans to keep everything on track.  But it's never been a "couple" thing and I was sick and tired of always feeling like the meanie for having to say we didn't have enough money.   But times are changing!  We sat down together and came up with a plan. We wrote out a budget and got our act together.  

The FPU friends had hoped to get us to a class, to a live talk with Dave Ramsey or at least on the program.  They passed along some CDs of Dave's radio show - I have been listening faithfully and loving every minute, every suggestion, every piece of advice.  I would come home and share little tidbits with with GG.  His response surprisingly was "so what things are you going to learn to teach me" and my jaw dropped (he still says he doesn't want to go but I have hope that we can at .  I started with the little things....let's make a list of our bills...let's make a budget...let's start living our wage (as Dave would say).  And he listened.  We gave ourselves a budget of $50 each for the first half of the month.  We compromised and we listened to each other.  It was great.

So now we are on the road.  Last night I mentioned the idea of building our emergency fun (Baby Step 1) to him and he said he thought that it was a good idea.  We're about half way there on that one.  I started looking last night for some extra income opportunities (things that I had already been doing but now I was the one actively looking instead of waiting for them to call me).  I came home today to hear him say "hey I found this new company that I think we both ought to look into as a way to make some extra to actively get this going."  He gave this suggestion without me saying a word.  Nothing. Nada. Zip.  I feel like he's got it and he's heard my vibes about the baby steps I want to work on.  Yeah!

One thing we are learning...it's much harder to spend cash on little trivial things.  That $50 we each have - that's for coffee on the road, snacks when we are out, and lunches on our own.  We each bought a coffee today and a lunch since we were on our own and couldn't get home for lunch. That was tough.  Watching that cash leave our hands was difficult but somehow gratifying.  GG even laughed and said he no longer will take a free latte's for granted...he'll look forward to that bonus.  We both laughed about how easy it is to spend when you don't really know where it's coming from or going to.  

Well I'm sorry I've rambled on enough tonight but I had to share.  Keep watching for my updates - I think this is going to be a ever changing process and it feels great.