The Debt-Free Family: Budgeting Tips

It's been enjoyable watching the Olympics these last few days. The teamwork, athleticism, coaching, victories, near loses, and world records make me want to soak in every second of the coverage. I especially love the commentators and post-event interviews. *thick sarcasm* If I hear the word "catastrophic" one more time...anyway, the negative comments remind me of the disdain we have heard from people around us about our search for victory. Not everyone sees the road we are taking as a good thing. In a world where having stuff is a measure of success, we look very unsuccessful. We look stingy, poor, like tight-wads...sounds fun, huh?!

"The Lord doesn't see things they way you see them. People judge by the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." 1 Samuel 16:7

We are intently training for our debt-free victory just like the athletes did. The secret to our success is the budget. It is the workout plan, it's the measure of our discipline. We budget every dollar that comes in on paper before we spend it in real life. I know that sounds too easy to really work, but month in and month out for three and a half years we have lived on this kind of budget. The best part is that we get to decide where our money goes. It's not restricting like we first thought it would be, it's very freeing. Our money is planned out so when we spend money, it's guilt-free. Right now we chose to put all our excess money toward student loans. We could certainly take that money and go on a vacation because it is still our money, but we are sticking to the plan.

"Children do what feels good, while adults devise a plan and follow it." ~Dave Ramsey

Quick Budgeting Tips

1. I use excel (paper and pencil work too) and write down our payday and income for the month.

2. We start by taking our tithe out first (10% of our income we give to our church)

3. Next we take out living expenses (rent, water, trash, gas, and electricity)

4. We now budget food/toiletries

5. Deduct money for transportation (insurance, gas, and oil changes)
6. We take out daycare expenses next
7. We pay minimum payments on all our debts (the smallest debt gets special attention at the end of this list)

*Now that we have the "necessities" taken care of we can budget for things that are nice but not mandatory
8. We pay for 2 cell phones and wireless Internet
9. We each get spending money each month for things we want. We call it BAM!
10. We also budget date night money each month
11. For miscellaneous expenses we budget a different amount each month for haircuts, gifts, or whatever we have planned for that particular month
12. Finally, we pile all the remaining money onto the smallest debt we owe. (More here about the debt snowball)

Our latest small victory is paying off another $1,000 of debt this week. We opened the $8,000 envelope and it told us to enjoy a KC sporting event. We, however, decided to go to the zoo instead! It felt like a sporting event walking to Africa and back!