Back in the Finances Saddle

This month marks some small victorious hope in our house, as Dan and I have prepared a zero-based budget for ourselves [again].

You might remember we took Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University at our church about a year and a half ago, and afterward, using the "baby steps" and the "debt snowball," we paid off two student loans and one car, making us debt-free-except-the house right before I quit my job last October.

Yay.

Then...

After that, we struggled to get our groove on with cash versus debit cards, juggling wants versus needs, and taking the time to sit down and actually DO the budget every month... So we completely fell off the wagon.

Now Murphy's Law has proven true in our home (read: dishwasher, garbage disposal, television, and washing machine all went out within one month of one another... right after we'd just invested in new carpet for the whole house and a new lens for my photography business.... and I'm due with another baby).

So the "hey we really should to start budgeting again" notion turned to "ummmm yeah our savings is like, way down, we can't spend like this any more."

A couple weeks ago, we finally sat down together [for four hours], revisited our finances and built a budget looking ahead for August.  Today I filled our cash envelopes for the month.  Tomorrow I go back out into the world after my affliction with and recovery from the most-violent stomach flu ever (why I'm already two days behind plan!) and might actually have to spend some money using our new budget system.

Please send positive thoughts our way this month.  This is not an easy thing for either one of us, with our different money personalities and all the stress and anticipation in our lives right now.

Along these lines, I'm sending you over to Dave Ramsey's blog and a list of get-out-of-debt success stories in case you too have been on the fence or needing some personal finance encouragement (or a kick in the pants) like us.