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We had some friends drive out to visit us this past week. They actually ended up saving us more money than anything. They bought toiletries, water and lots and lots of food! I have all of my debts listed on a BIG white board in the nook that's supposed to serve as a dining room (I guess). The board has notes about what to consider in the budget for next month, goals for the current month, and sometimes it'll have notes to Spouse since we are rarely home at the same time. It also has the progress bar from FPU with the Baby Steps next to it. My friend inquired about how to budget. So, we sat down and I put some notes in the notepad in her phone about budgeting to fulfill BS1 and how the debt snowball works in BS2. I gave her some budgeting apps to play with and showed her how I use my calendar to make sure my pay periods line up with my bills etc... Spouse was listening to everything. Spouse: The budgeting thing works. The credit cards are paid off and everytime I look at the bank account, there's $3,000 in there. I don't know how there happens to be money in the bank AND we're paying off the cards, but it works. Me: There's not $3,000, but thank you for ankowledging my hard work. Spouse: *looks at our friend* But you won't have ANY fun. None. At all. Me: Not true! We have a small Resturant category, an amusement category AND you get Blow money! Spouse: *Still looking at our friend* You have very little fun. All that money can be spent in 3 days. Friend: How much is it? Me: $50 for Resturants, $60 for Amusement and $100 for her blow money. If it were up to me, it would be $100 for all of it put together. Friend: Yeah, I can spend that in a day. Friend's 14 yo son: That's why you need a budget, Mom! LoL I do want to say that we must be doing something right if we aren't having ANY FUN at all. LoL I am super glad that Spouse is acknowledging that the budget works!!!! Yay!!!! That was the highlight of my week!!

On 6/20/2017 at 7:29 PM, cadberry said: Cherie - thanks for the update from this week's FPUlesson, and yay for DH listening on his own. ______ Thank you for caring about my FPU updates! This week is going to be the budget lesson and I am soooooo excited!!! After doing the reading from the Complete Guide to Money, I realize that the book is almost verbatim of the video so I thought Spouse would skip the reading part of the homework, but I found that the bookmark was moved. I think Spouse is more of a Free Spirit rather than just "not being on board" which is nice <3

Thank you all for your encouragement! I L. O. V. E. this forum!!!! FPMomma, You are sooooooo close to BS7! How exciting!!!! Chris and Kelvan, Thank you soooo much for even caring about my updates I am so thankful to just have a place to come and share my progress. My friends at work are really starting to see that I'm "weird." Most of my family says, "that's nice" when I talk to them about what we are trying to accomplish. There's one guy at work that seems to be a little inspired by me in a weird way. He is my favorite person on our team because we are SUPER competitive with each other. Everyone else on the team takes the competition to heart and they get their feelings hurt when they are losing. He and I just click and we know when to push each other and when it's time to back down The day that I cut off my blue bracelet, he mentioned that he made a $1,000 payment toward a credit card that he was trying to pay off. Today, we were talking about when we were going to have our cars paid off since he owes about the same amount that I do. Hmmmmm.... I wonder if I can talk him into making that a competition... LoL We can start with the same balance and see who can pay their car off the fastest That reminds me, Spouse is coming around to being a little more on board with the whole process! Just to re-cap, the reason I'm not doing the debt snowball in the correct order is because Spouse wanted to pay all non-student loan debt first using highest interest rates first. For a long time, Spouse has been saying that we can pay off the cards, but once they are paid, we would "be fine having regular debt (like the car loan). Yesterday, Spouse agreed to go to FPU with me as long as there aren't any "crazy Christians" (not too sure what that encompasses exactly) AND when we were having our budget meeting, I asked Spouse if they wanted to tackle the car after this credit card is over, or if they wanted to take a break while I worked on one of my loans to give them a break from the tight budget and just to get more blow money. Spouse says, "We can just tackle the car and get it out of the way." Sooooo exciting!!!! Yay!!! I was listening to an old DR podcast where a guy called in asking if the DVD home study was better than the Online version. DR asked him why he wouldn't take the in-person course. The guy's answer was something along the lines of, "I'm not a church-going person and I don't want to be made to pray or do something I'm not comfortable with." DRtold him that if anyone makes him, to RUN because those people are too much! He says that the class isn't like Bible study. While the principals are biblical, the course is meant to apply to everyone. That made me feel better about Spouse's concerns with going to church. Last time Spouse went to a church, it was to take pictures for some special event they were having, the pastor made it his mission to make sure we knew we were going to hell in a hand basket if we didn't repent and turn from our wicked ways. It was embarrassing since we were sitting in the front pew (to get nice pictures) and the pastor went from preaching about tithing to standing in front of us and, all of a sudden, changing his sermon to damn those of us who live in sin to the eternal fires of hell. He stood in front of us and looked down at us the ENTIRE time. It was horrible... but we're married now so I guess we're not living in sin anymore... I don't know... Who cares? I found an FPU class that starts the weekend that we get back from the wedding in Montana. I signed us up and am having the kits expedited since the following classes won't start until August and September. We finally used our clothing envelope to buy some clothes for the wedding, We didn't have enough for Spouse's shoes though. Instead of whining about it, Spouse just asked if we could adjust July's budget for shoes since June's budget is already written. I keep falling in love all over again!

I just wanted to say that I am soooo proud of Spouse! Spouse wanted to take over grocery shopping. Fine by me! Spouse went shopping for the last 3 weeks with Envelope in hand. I wasn't too thrilled last week when we didn't have eggs because "they weren't on sale." I came home today and Spouse is beaming! "Look in the fridge! I got eggs! I ask got cake, stuff for smores, and STEAK..." Umm... I was getting worried. LoL Spouse says, "... and you can't get mad because I have $40 in savings and there's still $6 in the envelope! We also have regular food for this week!!!" *Sighs in relief* FYI, I never find $40 in savings when I go to the store. This is soooo helpful

Great news x2!! So it's great, GREAT news! 1) Work is doing an overtime incentive that I plan to take full advantage of! $10/hr extra for any hours from 41-45 and $15/hr extra for anything $45+ hrs. Since I get commissions, my hourly is only $13.75 so this is really great! Plus, I was going to work overtime anyway. Sure, why not get MORE money for it!! 2) I asked Spouse if they would be willing to read TMMO anytime in the near future. "Yeah, sure. I'm doing a reading challenge and I do need an audiobook. If you can find the audiobook, I'll do it." FYI: The audiobook is available on the Hoopla app and only needs your library card info