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Budgeting Works!

To gain financial freedom you must take control of your money, plan for the future and Stop Borrowing Money!
Two families striving to gain financial freedom share their experiences.
Blog Author Mona Weathers (monawea)

Co-author, Manda C.
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Keeping The Family Sane During The Debt Freedom Journey

As I have said many times before the journey toward gaining financial freedom is not easy. At times you want to just give up and buy the big screen tv on a Best Buy card that offers no payments for a year. Don’t tell me you have thought of it at least once since you have started your journey. I know I have thought of it but haven’t yet come close to actually doing it. It can be very difficult for those of us that are taking a stand for our own future and finally telling our money what to do. We see our friends, family and neighbors buying the bigger and the better or the latest and the greatest ’stuff’ on the market. It’s just stuff though. It’s not really what will make you happy.

For those of us that have children we have to be careful. Our feelings of ‘wanting more’ will trickle down to our kids. Our kids our watching us. So if we decide we are going to be content and not wish for more then we are teaching them one of the best lessons they could learn among a society of spenders. I often tell me kids and sometimes my husband that we need to be clear of our needs and wants. It’s important that we teach our kids the difference between “I want a new bike” and ‘I need school supplies’.

The best way to teach our kids to be happy with their ‘haves’ is for us as parents not to focus on the ‘have not’s’. Our family started a new thing a few months ago that has really turned out to be great. We have this piggy bank that looks like most piggy banks except it had no money in it. Since our family always seemed to have change lying around the house I decided that we needed to use the money instead of pretending it was like dust that we needed to get ride of. Our small coins are money too, even pennies. So the plan I had was for everyone to put any money lying around in our piggy bank and when the bank was full then we would use it on a family related event, like going to the movies or product, like buying a movies or going out for ice cream.The first time we did this we had a lot of pennies hanging around so most of the coins were pennies. But what I didn’t expect to happen was that my teenage daughter and my son were putting some of their own money in it from time to time. Because the whole family was pitching in and adding money we ended up with about $44 dollars. The money allowed us to have a family outing that my husband and I didn’t have to worry about were the money was going to come from. As a family we had set aside this money for the family. For our first outing we went to an ice cream shop and then to the $1 movie. It was also my baby daughter’s first time to the movies. It was great!

These are the kind of lessons I want to teach my children. That if we all pitch in and set aside money for some of our ‘wants’ we can have them. So next time you say “I need” out loud make sure it’s something your really need. And teach your kids that life does not have to be about money but at the same time if the whole family pitches in then we can do the things we want from time to time, even while on a tight budget.

April 1, 2007 | Filed Under Financial Advice

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One Response to “Keeping The Family Sane During The Debt Freedom Journey”

Time To Budget » Blog Archive » What To Do With Your Tax Return? on April 5th, 2007

[...] Am I saying that we should spend more than we can afford on something for ourselves just because “we deserve it”. No. The key word is budget. Budget how much you are going to use on your baby steps and budget how much you are going to spend on yourself. This is true of any ‘extra’ money your might receive not just your tax return. If you aren’t expecting any money read this post I wrote about ‘family fun money’. [...]

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