One of the great things about doing a church-wide study is hearing the stories of how an individual or family are transformed by the study. The pastoral staff hears tons of stories, but we rarely get the chance to share them with everyone. Of course, some of the stories we hear are private and the person doesn't want everyone else to know. Most of the time, we hear great stories that others would love to hear and be encouraged by what God is doing within the church family but there is not an outlet for them to share.
Here is your chance to share your story. In the comments section below, tell the church your story. You don't have to include your name or email or any other identifying information unless you choose to. We want to give you the opportunity to tell others about how God is using Financial Peace University and your small group to change your life.
Click on "Comments" below and tell us your story.
Our college-age daughter has been hearing our stories of FPU and our strategies for budgeting and stretching every dollar. She recently had the opportunity to upgrade her cell phone using her own money. She opted for the LESS expensive phone as it was a better use of her money and allowed her to contribute to the monthly family plan usage fees.
ReplyDeleteOur story with FPU goes back to about a year and a half ago when my wife and I were living in the greater Chicago area. We had been married for a little over a year and as most newlyweds we didn't have a plan... I work from home so I have the luxury of eating at home everyday and not having any significant expenses on gas, dry cleaning, etc. My income is above the average and yet we didn't have much saved and we weren't even saving for any particular purpose. I decided to sign up to an online service that help you to keep record of your expenses (I'm a Statistician so I find almost anything with numbers and charts highly interesting.) After a few months of looking at my records I was shocked by the distribution of our expenses: the groceries/restaurants category was huge, as well as several other categories due to significant purchases we had made pretty much without much thinking... It was at that time when I realized that we needed an objective so we started to save to buy a house (we had recently moved from Europe so we were renting at that time.) Realizing that we needed to control our expenses was helpful but the lessons were just getting started. A few days before the closing day the lender came back to me saying that my 30-yr loan application had been declined and that the only alternative they could offer was a 15-yr fixed, which obviously increased the payments significantly. I asked them to give me a couple of days to think and pray about it. It was during those days that I visited the 'personal finances' section of the local library where I borrowed a copy of the FPU book and the "Total Money Makeover". I read the intro of both books as quickly as I could and the principles were very clear from the beginning, the first one being: We needed a budget. The sole exercise of putting the bank statements together and plan for what we actually needed (and avoid everything else) helped us to make a projection of whether the amount we expected to have available to make the 15-yr commitment would be enough, or not (now I realize they did me a favor!). So we decided to move on with the purchase and to cut a lot of expenses immediately. But the lessons continued.
ReplyDeleteRight after closing we realized of other possible expenses we could run into right after we moved in. So, that's when the character-forming type of decisions began to take place. My lovely 8-month pregnant wife and I made the difficult decision to rent our lovely house out. It wasn't easy but the cold hard numbers were convincing enough. We rented out the house pretty easily, but as Dave Ramsey says, Murphy is interestingly more likely to visit when you're out of cash... A few months after the tenants moved in they called us with a major plumbing issue, I mean, a $4,000 issue! Thank God the rental income helped us to cover all the expenses. But from that moment on it became crystal clear that we really needed to get serious about our finances.
Long story short, this year my wife decided to become a realtor, thanks to the FPU and the Total Money Makeover books, and the fantastic FPU course leaded by FBCW we have an emergency fund in place, a rental unit with splendid new tenants chosen by my favorite realtor ;), saved enough to give the down payment of a second property this year, started to fund both of our Roth IRA acconts (and really take advantage of the 401k match offered by my employer), we've started saving for our now 17-month old's college, and have opened a couple of accounts with some Balanced, Growth, and Income Mutual Funds!
Obviously, we've been 'gazelle-intense' for over a year and a half now. No restaurants, no new clothes, no movie theaters, plan trips to use the car, etc... Thank God and FPU, we're now in a much better place than a year and a half ago, and we're on our way to "soon" start living and giving like no one else!