MONEY! Brian and I went to a financial seminar at our church on Wednesday and it was sooo good! We had heard this particular presenter speak a couple years ago, but this time we were in a different place in life with different goals we want to achieve. Our speaker was Joe Sangl-a younger Dave Ramsey if you will. He actually read Dave Ramsey's book, completely changed his life financially and decided to write books on how he did it as well (with the full support of Mr. Ramsey, might I add). His seminar is called The Financial Learning Experience. He was really entertaining, had funny stories and really made you feel like he was the average Joe (no pun intended) who got out of debt successfully. Now, Brian and I do not have a lot of debt (minus our house) because we do not use credit cards but we accrued some--financial aid, hospital bills and our Jeep. I feel if we can get these things paid off completely then it will not be a struggle for me to stay at home with my sweet guy. Well, I was just really excited about the seminar and spent the better part of 30 minutes telling my mom everything that we learned. I thought I'd share a little with you too! :) Just some quotes and advice Mr. Sangl gave.
"The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty." Proverbs 21:5
His reoccurring theme is THERE MUST BE A PLAN! We need to be in control of our money and not let it be in control of us. He said that we need to spend our money before the month begins. -- We can just about guess how much income we will make the next month (those of us on salary). Before the month starts, sit down and distribute your money to areas such as tithes, charitable giving, savings, bills, insurance, debt, etc. He has this awesome tool via excel where you can insert your income, and all of the above expenses and will total your 'outgo.' If it's in the red, then there is some adjusting to be done, if yellow, you have leftover money to be distributed somewhere (savings, retirement, giving), and if it's green that means your total is exactly zero--where it should end up every month. He makes sure that we realize people need to have fun too and there are entertainment, shopping, blow money places to budget money as well. Anyway, the other part of that verse was talking about haste. How many things have I bought in haste without planning ahead of time.....A LOT! All. the. time. I go to Wal-Mart to buy bread and come out with $100 worth of junk! He suggested using money envelopes when going to the grocery store, shopping, movies, etc. That way you HAVE to stay within your budget. Thought that was a good idea! He also talked a lot about IRA's, 401K's, compound interest, etc. That was a little over my head BUT he gives a lot 'calculators' (totally free) on his website where you just put in the numbers and it will tell you how many months until you are debt free, how much you should be putting into your retirement funds to have 'this much' by the time you retire....He said it is soooo crucial to have a retirement fund and not rely solely on Social Security. "If you work for 20 years and end with nothing, then you just worked for free and mailed your money off to someone else." I liked that quote.
Anyway, check him out-- website: http://www.josephsangl.com/
http://iwasbrokenowimnot.com/--another website using the title of his book I Was Broke. Now I'm Not. which Brian and I purchased and I have begun reading. You can buy a book here. His website also gives links to a ton of other resources such as grocery coupon sites, online promotional code sites, restaurant deal sites, etc. Seriously, check him out. I wish I could have you experience what I did on Wednesday. Just here to help out!
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