All About the Envelopes

On January 1, 2009 I sat down in the study at my parent's house and started reading this book...

By the time the day was over I had finished it. I couldn't put it down. Everything in the book was exactly what I needed to be reading. Josh and I had only been married a few months but we had just bought a car, we had a little debt accumulated from before we were married, and I had current dental bills and future bills as well. I knew at that time we needed to take control of our money before things got worse for us than they already were. We were fortunate because what we had so far was manageable but if we didn't do something about it soon that would change. So we signed up for Financial Peace University at a local church and that was probably the best thing have done as a married couple to date. Josh and I faithfully attended the class and learned so much. We set up a budget (a lot easier than I thought) and we really started working on our debt. One of the things we wanted to incorporate into our spending was the use of envelopes. Luckily when you join Financial Peace University you get an envelope wallet as part of your package. So for almost two years I carried around these...

One was a wallet for my envelopes and the other was for my personal cash, debit cards, receipts, other random things, etc. These two things together weighed my purse down and were a pain to deal with at times. It just wasn't always easy to get all of my transactions done efficiently. I didn't want to spend just to spend (after all this whole thing is all about saving) so I waiting until my envelopes were a mess and it was time for new ones. I actually even used it past that point for a while. Since we're expecting a baby and I wanted to simply I figure now is as good of time as any. So I went to www.daveramsey.com the other day and found this...half off!

Here's my new wallet. It holds money, change, debit cards, AND ENVELOPES!!! I wasn't sure I was going to be able to combine everything in it but so far so good. It's just nice having everything all in once place.

The envelopes are crisp and clean and I can't wait to write in them. They just make budget and money saving so much easier and I highly recommend them.

In honor of all this Dave Ramsey talk I also wanted to share something exciting (and to have it written down for future reference). Today Josh and I are making our LAST car payment. Because of the good Lord and all we learned through Dave Ramsey we were able to pay it off in two years. Not only that but we have zero credit cards, no bank loans, no student loans, and no dental/medical bills. If it wasn't for the sacrifices we have made throughout these last two years things could be a lot different. We still have a small amount of debt that we want to work on (it's interest free and there's not time limit on it) so we're trying to get refocused and get serious again.

I encourage you all, if you haven't gotten yourself on a budget (married or single) you should do it. It will change your life. It's so nice to have control of your money instead of your money having control of you.

Having said all this I want to assure you that Josh and I are still into saving money and living as inexpensively as we can (no cable, limited eating out budget, apartment living, etc). We are about to have a baby, Josh is still in seminary, etc so this is not the time to spend the money we're saving. We're just thankful to be able to have more of the burden of debt lifted. And I pray we'll be such good stewards of what God gives us so that next time we need a car we won't have to get a loan. I've had several people ask about things Josh and I did to save money and get on a budget so if you have any questions feel free to e-mail me. We aren't perfect AT ALL and we don't have this whole thing down but we're working hard on it.