Financial Legacy (Part 1 of 12)

If you remember, part of my "Manhood Plan", my strategy to be the husband and father I've been called to be in order to effect a long term legacy on my family, is

-I desire to reach financial freedom for my family in order to pursue God's callings without encumberance. To this end I will continue seeking God for his will with our money, finding ways to free more money to reduce debt sooner.

Dave Ramsey states it well when he says: "If you will live like no one else, Later you can LIVE/give like no one else!!"

To this end, Charis and I have begun a 12 week study by Dave Ramsey called Financial Peace University. It is encouraged that we journal our progress so I thought this would be as good a place as any.

It seems as though, although our income has increased, our ability to save has decreased. Some of this is due to our reliance on credit cards when my commission-only business was getting started, some of this is due to our buying a house and drastically increasing our housing expense. But, most of all, it is a mindset and excuse. The point was made that if our child were going to die unless he received a $1,000 vaccination, we would find a way to come up with that thousand. Good point. Dave recommends several baby steps, the first of which is to save $1,000 in an "emergency" fund. We have decided to take this first baby step although it doesn't seem possible with our current expense/income ratio. I currently have $50 deducted from my paycheck twice a month. We will continue to do this, but add a few things to this. We have decided to TRY to decrease our grocery/food budget from $700 a month to $400 freeing up $300. This will be quite a challenge of frugality, creativity and discipline in order to feed a family of 5 (and 2 dogs) on $100 a week. Also...I have TEMPORARILY postponed my 401(k) contributions and will re-route that into savings as well which will provide an additional $230ish a month. At this rate, if we can stick to it (could use your prayers for God's provision on that one) we will have our first baby step completed in 6 1/2 weeks. Currently we have 5% of our goal completed.