How I Met Dave Ramsey

I was first introduced Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover personal finance system in the winter of 2006. While I was on vacation I was listening to his book on my iPod. I remember sitting by the pool in Mexico listening to the book thinking to myself "that's not us, we don't borrow money from cash checking or title pawning companies" we're doing just fine. What I now realize is that I must have dozed off during the most important parts of the book. I guess I took a pretty long nap in the sun that day.

Then I started listening to Dave on the radio in Kansas City on 710 AM occasionally when I was in the car running errands. Dave's system was SO simple and he was always SO consistent in his message, I was really drawn to that. When we returned from adopting our daughter in China in the Spring of 2008 I had an offer from one of my Realtor friends to go to see Dave Ramsey Live in Kansas City. I jumped at the opportunity and dragged my husband along. It was the best $60 I've ever spent.

After seeing Dave live, we decided to attend Dave's Financial Peace University program at KC Life Church. I was amazed that my husband and I didn't miss one of the 13 classes over that summer. We made it a major priority and it completely changed the way we looked at our personal finances. During those 13 weeks, we started living by a budget, we cut our expenses significantly, we started communicating about money and making joint decisions and we began to pay off debt.

By the end of the 13 weeks we realized that we had been going through life way too fast. We were just so busy that we didn't "have time to talk about money" or to "plan our financial futures". Luckily we had made some good financial decisions. But we had also made some other bad decisions with our money, like borrowing way too much.

By the fall of 2008 we had "straightened out" many of the issues that we had created with our money and were on a more secure financial path. It was then that I was called to teach the Financial Peace University program at our church, St. Elizabeth's in Kansas City. I spent the next 13 weeks facilitating the program to 15 people. In the Spring of 2009 our pastor asked me to teach the class again and this time 75 people signed up to take the class. I am so proud of all of the Financial Peace University graduates. It's a big commitment, but so worth it.