Dave Ramsey.

Have you heard of him? If not, you need to seek out his stuff. He's responsible for a Financial Peace course and book. We (Reluctantly...I'm such a foot-dragger when it comes to things I know I need to do.) signed up for his class at the beginning of this year. It cost us $100, and required that we sacrificed every Monday night until May.

It's changed our life. It's saved our life.

This class is just a series of DVD's, a workbook, a book, some random envelopes and a wallet like thing to hold them in. Those items right there, along with some deep soul-searching and serious discipline, have helped us finally get a grasp on our finances and has showed us how to get our heads above the water. We're finally on a (Tight!) budget. Our money zeros out each month because we have a place, a job, for each dollar that we receive. I'm amazed by the peace that one little budget can give you! We have some serious savings now. Its March. We started a month ago. Why weren't we doing this years ago?! By the calculations of Mr. Dave Ramsey and his helpful website, we will be debt free (completely and totally) in 2010. No more school loans! No more car loans! No more debt hanging over our head!

Today is Thursday. Payday. Today we officially start the envelope system of paying only cash for certain things. We've cut up and canceled the credit cards (They've been paid off for awhile. For some reason, though, we hung onto to them. Security and all that. It's silly, really.) and have placed the debit card to the side. We've set up for our bills to be automatically paid. We're plastic free for the time being. It's an amazing feeling!

For the first time ever, Tucker and I are working side by side to tackle this. And we have hope that we can...