Financial Smarts = Happiness

There are many parts of life that can make you happy. From your friends and family, work, hobbies. There are lots of ways to live a happy life. One thing that has always been a little stressful is in the areas of finance.

I’m not going to lie. I know nothing about personal finance, but I defiantly know how to spend money. I love shopping. It makes all my worries go away and I can focus on finding the perfect leather skirt or finding cute jeans at Asos.  When I went through a really tough breakup, this was the only thing that made me feel better. So now I have about $5000 worth of credit card debt I need to pay off.

I have really began to put more focus on now that I am in my 30’s is my personal finances. Most people these days are living check to check and I don’t want to be that way anymore. I feel that now that I am in my 30’s it’s so scary not to have any savings in case of an emergency. Without having this debt, I feel that my life would be less stressful. I could walk a little taller knowing that nothing is holding me back in a financial sense. So, the first thing I decided to do is google.

Ok so when you google how to get your personal finances together it’s so overwhelming. There really are so many opinions on the subject how can you figure out which one is right for you. They talk about stocks, bonds, money market accounts etc. I was so overwhelmed and still didn’t have a starting point. Sorry google I gave up on you.

Next I tried to budget on my own. I like budgets, but I couldn’t figure out where exactly I can save money. When your pay is based off commission, it makes it harder. I had everything on a beautiful excel spreadsheet. I needed more help because I couldn’t figure it out.

The next thing I decided to do is talk with my mom.  My mom is probably the smartest woman I know and she’s really lived life. So, I knew that she would be the perfect person to go to. My mom is also the most organized person I know. She whipped out this tub filled with material by this guy Dave Ramsey. She gave me this little index card with 7 baby steps on it.

1. Get $1000 in an emergency fund as soon as possible.
2. Pay off debt using debt snowball
3. 3-6 months of expenses in savings
4. Invest 15% of household income into a Roth IRA and pre-tax retirement
5. College funding for children
6. Pay off home early
7. Build wealth and give

After I read those steps I felt some relief LOL. I was so happy that I found something to break down everything I needed to do. At the same time I felt a little scared. Can I really do this? $5000 of credit card debt isn’t that much right? All these things started to dominate my thought process. Then I found out there is a class you can take to help you learn about personal finance! YES!!! YASSSS!!!! I felt a huge sense of relief. The class is called Financial Peace University. I suck at self-study I can’t be trusted to complete it. I am so excited to be around people who want to learn about this as much as I do, and have struggled just like me.

I want to take you on this financial journey with me! Each week I will be writing a summary post about the class and my experience! If you would like more info on Dave Ramsey check out www.fpu.com.

XOXO Teryn