Family Finance
If you, like me, are the keeper of the budget, you may know
just how challenging it is to get your spouse involved in making the budget and
working together. If you cannot stand making budgets and they bore you out of
your skull, then your personality matches my husband's. He hates it, also.
I worked with the Crown Financial Ministries program that
started with Larry Burkett. I really liked the program, but I could not engage
my husband or teenage / young adult son in the matter. It made working on a
family budget really challenging.
Enter, Dave Ramsey. I had wanted to take the class, but in
our community, the church that offered it offered it on a night we were not
available. Fortunately, one of my dear friends and her husband took the course.
She offered it to her friends in and outside of her church. My husband, son,
and I took the course. The first DVD of the program (this is the just older
program, not the newest 2012 version) got my husband and son's attention. YEA!
Is he teaching anything different from Crown Financial
Ministries? No, not really. The only “big” difference is the order in which
Dave Ramsey recommends paying off debt. What Dave Ramsey does well is
showmanship. This is what my husband and son needed. He gave them a reason to
be interested in making a budget. He gave them a reason to save, especially
showing the numbers for a young man starting to save $2000 per year at age 20
versus waiting until age 26 to do the same. Lucky Charms got that message. The
only downside is that Lucky Charms is rather impulsive still and wants things
“now” rather than saving, so he leans toward wanting to get a loan, though
fortunately, when he does, it tends to be short-term loans. He is contemplating
consequences and costs more thoroughly, though.
If you and your spouse, if you are married, (or fiancée /
financé if engaged) have not yet taken
this course, I highly recommend taking it. It may take time to get the program
to work for your family with ups and downs in family financial circumstances,
but keep working at it. You will be blessed and you will see those debts
dwindle down and your capacity for providing for your needs and wants – and
long-term future – increase.
What has been your most successful method for getting your
family on a budget? Who inspires you?
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