Katie is our daughter, and when she and her husband Steve announced that they were taking the church's Financial Peace class, I thought that sounded like a pretty good idea. Little did I know that I was going to soon be sucked into it, too.
Steve and Katie would regularly tell us all that they were learning. They really liked Steve and Christy Jo Crowley's leadership of the class and authentic sharing of their own financial journey. Not only were they learning, but Dave Ramsey's teaching and Steve & Christy Jo's encouragement helped them take big savings and budget steps. They are now debt free and saving for a home and long term goals.
Steve and Katie were so impressed that they bought their own set of the DVDs that the class is based on. That's where we started getting sucked in. When we watched a few of the DVDs at home, Ramsey's common sense, Biblically-based teaching really got me thinking.
When Steve and Christy Jo couldn't lead the class for the fall semester. Katie agreed to team lead the class with me and Linda....and that's where our financial waters started really getting roiled up. There's nothing quite like listening to good teaching and then talking about it for an hour with others on the same journey. Each week, we would listen to the DVD's for an hour, and then share victories large and small, and talk about what Ramsey had just taught. It was great fun sharing with old friends and new friends in the group....sometimes with a lot of laughter....and sometimes considering difficulties with compassion.
It would be hard to overstate the value of this class for Linda and me. We have returned to budgeting, and dramatically increased our saving and investing for retirement. We have also updated our insurance and made several other important changes in our money management. Where "the ants were carrying off money" we have shut them out with financial discipline. In short....we got a grip.
We weren't the only ones, either. Thousands of dollars of debt has been paid off in our group....and some are just a few months away from being debt free. Credit cards have been cut up and a real emphasis on savings came over the group.
During the last class, I had a revelation about the multi-faceted value of this teaching. Here's what I understood as never before:
- The devil really uses money to cause friction in families. If we can together get our money under control, his foothold in this area gets pretty small.
- The Bible says the borrower is servant to the lender. That means when we are in debt, we are slaves to money. Most of us can get out of all but mortgage loan debt within a few years at most. Many of us can even get out from under mortgages if we stick with it a few years more.
- When we have control of our money - instead of it controlling us - we are free to give to every good purpose. We can provide guilt-free gifts to help adult children. We can partner in building the kingdom of God through the church and in many other ways. God loves a cheerful giver, the scriptures tell us, and this class can really help us get to that place in our giving.
Get a grip on your money like we did and thousands of others - take Financial Peace University this semester!
