Dave Ramsey’s Personal Finance Software - Budgeting Software

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A few months back the Dave Ramsey website was having a deal on there Financial Peace Software so I decided to buy it. Though I have had the software for a few months I only just started using this month. So far I really like it. There are a lot of great tools offered in the software.
All of the worksheets found in the Financial Peace University curriculum (Monthly Cash Flow, Allocated Spending, Income Sources, etc.) is also found on the CD-ROM. You can print out blank sheets or the sheets you have filled out.

The great part about this budgeting software is that it calculates everything for you. So you just enter the numbers and then the software takes care of the rest. Percentages are also automatically calculated for you.

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There are some other tools that are useful as well. In the Tools section of the CD-ROM you can use the Financial Calculators, Glossary and Check Register. The software is fairly simple (as opposed to too complicated that you get frustrated and don’t bother with it) but very useful. The Debt Snowball program is one of the best features. Enter in all your debt balances with monthly payments and it will calculate how long it will take for you debt to be paid. The Debt Snowball features also allows you to view your progress in charts and graphs.

The software is $24.95 and totally worth it. I like having my budgeting software on my computer since it’s with me just about everywhere I go. You also have the choice of downloading the software straight from the website. No need to wait on getting your budget started. Check it out! Dave Ramsey’s Personal Finance Software.

~Mona

October 28, 2008 | Filed Under Blogging Tips, Dave Ramsey Financial Freedom, Financial Goals, Financial Planning | 3 Comments 

Components of the not-so-quick get rich plan

We live in a world of instant gratification. We allow that it takes years to get 40 lbs over weight, but we want to lose the weight in a month. If not we don’t see “results”, and give up. The same applies to cash flow planning. Dave wants you to give it 3 months before you’re on a working system. After the initial first month of Financial Peace, it’s easy to lose the momentum, the excitement when the “found” money in your budget is reassigned and accountable. Eventually, there is no more money to be found. J and I just sold another vehicle. We have officially no car payments. We have no more vehicles to sell. Our budget is now working, and it feels great. But we’re at a point that we will have to be diligent, we’ll have to know, deep down that it is working, that it takes time, or it will be easy to give up. We can fall into the temptation, the lie that it is “too hard”, or that it isn’t happening “fast enough”.

After giving up both of our nice vehicles, it is easy for me to look at what others are driving and feel envy, covet their ride. But, I definitely don’t want those car payments again in my cash flow plan. It is easier to live frugally now than it once was, even a year ago. I’ve said that I poked fun at my girlfriend, but now, I see the wisdom in some of her decisions. There are less and less people to poke fun at. I know, because of the emails I get from friends and family asking about our Financial Peace journey. It’s nice to know that we’ve made such a change that it is visible to those in our life. From the people who also want to get involved in Financial Peace, I’d hazard to say that it is a good change.

I’ve also realized that you don’t need to be cheap to be frugal. There is a difference. Someone who is cheap, is stingy. Someone who is cheap isn’t hospitable. Along the same lines, one doesn’t need to be unnecessarily wasteful. There is a happy, sensible middle. I think, for the time being, we’ve found it. We’re not wasteful, but also not cheap. It is this happy, sensible middle that will help us get through the next 18 months. Our living needs to be tolerable, or it won’t be doable. We’ve given our cash flow plan a couple of months. We talk, with less screaming, about money. We’re both involved in the financial decisions. We have the same goals. All of which are part of our not so quick get rich plan.

~Manda

ETA.  I’ve been reading the book of Proverbs.  It’s a terrific book to read each day, every day.  There are 31 chapters.  When you’re done, start over again.  It’s a book of finances, relationships, forgiveness, marriage, parenting, wealth, debt, and everything in between.  I’m amazed that each day there is always something that jumps out that is specifically relevant to what I’ve been thinking about, talking about, praying about…  Today it is Proverbs 21:5:

5 The plans of the diligent lead surely to plenty,
But those of everyone who is hasty, surely to poverty.

October 21, 2008 | Filed Under Financial Planning | 1 Comment 

FPU- motivation, edification, and accountibility.

J and I have paid down enough debt since starting FPU in June to equal our yearly income. The first thing we did was to sell our van. Financial Peace could really be renamed the “sell your car to prove that you’re serious about getting out of debt” plan. We traded down J’s truck for a more affordable truck. In the end, we decided to be totally rid of any car payment, and have sold that truck. We have a small balance left over for the upside down credit that we owed from liquidating these assets. There is definitely something to be said about not having a car payment. We aren’t even debt free yet, yet, I feel like an enormous burden has been lifted from our shoulders, because it has been.

When we first started FPU, we talked briefly about selling our van, and then made excuses, plans, about how we could keep it. We still believed the great American myth that “everyone NEEDS a car payment”. We didn’t totally accept this as a lie until another couple in our FPU class sold their Lexus. Reading about Financial Peace, and being a first hand witness to Financial Peace are two different things. This is one of the reasons I suggest that even if you believe that you can’t afford the $93 to take FPU, that you sell something and get involved. There’s no promise that you’ll have the same source of motivation, but the class will be filled with people, just like you, from whom you can garner support. It’s hard doing it alone. The doing isn’t so hard. Maintaining focus and motivation is what’s hard, for me, especially after the first few weeks when you plateau.

We are wonderfully made social people by God. Yes, Financial Peace has a religious component to it without shoving religion down your throat. Even if you aren’t religious, the Bible contains smart common sense about money. Proverbs alone contains mountains of financial advice, particularly about not being a surety (cosigner of a loan). Proverbs 11:15 says that “One who hates being surety is secure”. Being at stay at home mom, I have plenty of time to watch Judge shows on TV, granted my 2 year old doesn’t have other plans. Most, if not all of these “small claims” concern defaulted loans. Don’t loan out money. If you are in the position to be giving out money, give it. Do a good deed without expecting anything in return. If you can’t give out the money without taking out credit, or being a surety, don’t. If asked why, tell them that God tells you that being a surety isn’t a good idea. Dave uses a verse in Proverbs (22:7) to illustrate the relationship once money is lent… “the borrower is servant to the lender”. Think it’s silly, have you ever owed anyone money? Has anyone ever borrowed money from you? It puts a strain on the relationship. At our onset of FPU, our van was nearly repoed. My MIL got a loan to keep the van out of repossession. We could have kept the van and made payments to her, but I did not want to be her slave. We sold it and got out from underneath the remaining debt as quickly as we could.

Financial Peace University gives you a syllabus of finances in the Bible. God doesn’t want you to be in debt. Why? Because it creates stress. Someone that I look to as a mentor is going through a very tough time in her marriage right now. It’s been hard for me because it has been reflective of my own past problems. There are a lot of differences between the two, but the primary is that she and her husband don’t have the debt adding the extra dimension of stress to her marriage. She’s able to focus of God and her husband and her family in order to heal. Financial Peace University gives you partners that- whether intentional or not- whether they know it or not- encourage you, to “comfort and edify each other” as 1 Thessalonians 5:11 offers.

I’ve written a couple of times about the couple on FPU group that attacked their debt with gazelle intensity. This is the same couple that we modeled our behavior after they sold their vehicle. I could see the physical difference in them just in the freedom from that debt, and it motivated me to do the same. I’m happy to write that last weekend, they became debt free. They’re going to try to call the Dave Ramsey show tomorrow and scream that “They’re debt free”, so listen out for them. If there is a local FPU meeting in your area, go, get role models and peers in the same situation as you, with the same motivation as you, and the same goal as you. If you don’t find someone with which you can compare, perhaps you can serve as the good example in your class. There are too many reasons to go to FPU, I can’t even begin to enumerate them here. But, I hope that my successful experience is just one of the reasons to go. I couldn’t have done it without the 14 weeks of accountability we received at FPU.

~Manda

October 16, 2008 | Filed Under Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University (FPU), Financial Freedom Journey Pep Talk | Leave a Comment 

Preplan meals to save money, time, and stress.

When I was broke[r], shopping meant getting in the car and going to the grocery store, filling my buggy, paying, and leaving. When someone in my house got hungry, I went to the fridge- opened it, and stared. If I didn’t get any inspiration, I’d go to the pantry, open, and stare. Same thing for the freezer. Since there was no organization, it was hard to fit cooking a meal into my schedule. Since there was no organization, in the time I had wasted on staring at what was in house, someone, usually me, had gotten more hungry and was ready for a meltdown. Typically, we’d decide to go out or order in, despite the couple of hundred dollars worth of groceries piling up. There was an insane amount of snacking going on, because no one was really sure when the next meal would come. It sounds so hard, like such a bother, to get on a meal schedule, but I can see now that it is actually easier on our budget, our stress, our waistlines, and our family to plan for meals. Even if you don’t need to scour newspaper inserts for what is on sale, just not buying the convenience foods will save money.

One way to combat this is to keep ready-made processed foods in the house, which is more expensive, and less nutritious. My toddler thinks that cereal bars are “cookies” and demands one each morning. She could eat oatmeal for pennies, a piece of toast, or something else, but instead, I’ve conditioned her to demand cookies because of my inability to plan.

When we started FPU, the first thing we cut was eating out. My parents took me to Olive Garden last weekend in celebration of my turning 29 again, and I was in heaven. What was once a mundane, unappreciated activity, was a time of enjoyment. I couldn’t quite get out of Ramsey mode, and only ordered the never-ending pasta bowl, but it was delicious. I was also sure to get refills right before we planned to leave.

Our 2nd change was to budget our groceries. And boy are we doing it cheap. In order to keep to the cash in our envelope, I have to plan before stepping out the door. I start by making menus, and then I scour newspaper inserts. Many of them I get on-line, but WalMart for some reason never has one. So, until they do, Wal-Mart is out of our shopping loop since I don’t subscribe to the regular paper, and only get the once weekly free paper that contains the inserts from a few stores. In the end, it’s a good thing, because in Wal-Mart, it is so hard for me to stick to the cash in pocket.

Today I discovered a new service on-line that I think will save me oodles of time, and will be a great resource to working-moms who might not be able to plan. It’s called mygrocerydeals.com. There is a free registration involved, but once you’re signed up, you can customize the site to your zip code. Use your account profile to remove stores in which you do not shop. Set your favorite store, and then compile your starter list. Once you’re set up, you can see what is on sale at your stores. You can browse by stores, and by category. You can add items to your list to be printed out. I haven’t gotten that far yet, but I hope it is divided into stores. With the price of gasoline, I can’t advocate driving 10 miles to get 20 cents off of bread, but I think there is the potential to save money if I add a couple of nearby stores to my shopping day.

I shop on Saturday’s because my favorite grocery store has their Take-n-Bake pizzas for 4.88 each Saturday. Also, J is home and I get to escape without the girls. Try it out and let me know what you think. Are there any online services that you swear by? It’s amazing to me how far the Web has come in just 15 years. I wrote a paper on Tim Berners-Lee last night. If you don’t know, he is the guy that invented the Web. He isn’t surprised, and promises that there is much more on the horizon. It’s thrilling to me to see what was once science fiction become commonplace.

One last tip concerning buying products on sale is that things like toilet paper go on sale in a rotation, so spend the extra dough and stock up in order to make it through the 3 month cycle.

If you don’t go buy now, go to the store with a list and STICK TO IT. I make also a “wish list”, and if I’m under my budget at check out, I treat myself.

~Manda

October 4, 2008 | Filed Under Recipes on a Budget, Saving Money, Savings | Leave a Comment 

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