Monday, April 2, 2012

Where Your Treasure Is...

Dave Ramsey has complete taken over my life. I can't even walk into a store without thinking "is this Dave Ramsey approved?" I cling to my brown envelope system and make every dollar stretch until the next payday. I am definitely becoming the nerd of the relationship - monthly budget and all! I think Dave would be proud of how far we have come in the past 13 weeks, since we first began Financial Peace University. It has been a lifestyle change for us and I hope we can keep this gazelle intensity until the day when we are finally able to say "I'M DEBT FREE!!!!!!!"

With all this talk and focus on money lately, I keep going back a verse in Matthew: where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. What does that mean exactly? If I were to take it literally, it would mean that my heart is in a savings account, or being doled out to different masters each month. At first, this was hard for me to grasp. It seemed incredibly selfish and almost counter-Biblical. But after several tough conversations, I have come to realize a few things:

1. Money is a tool. It does not define who you are. Having it is nice, but it does not necessarily make you happy. I think managing your money (even if you don't have very much!) is the key to happiness and financial peace.

2. Motivation is key. Planning for your future does not mean you are selfish. It means that you have a plan. If your motivation for saving money is to hoard or be a miser, then you are in trouble. A wise friend compared it to the parable of the talents. God wants to see us build it up in order to take care of others. Giving is a key part of Dave Ramsey's plan as well.

3. Don't lose hope. Ten more years of student loan debt seems extremely overwhelming to me right now, but with the debt snowball and some personal sacrifices we can pay it off early and be debt free by the time we are 35 - which sounds pretty good to me!

4. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. After much soul searching, I have found this saying to be true. A majority of our monthly income goes to student loan debt and I get so caught up paying the bills that I don't stop to think about why. We both went to college. We had four + years of incredible learning experience, and we met people who will be our friends for life. We had experiences that have forever changed our worldview. My heart is in the pod watching hours of Friends with my mater. It is in the lobby making forts and at McConn having serious conversations instead of writing papers. It is in the midnight walks to Circle K and the all night homework sessions at Southside. We both had the opportunity to travel overseas and see that the world is bigger than our own backyard. These are the memories that Sallie Mae cannot take away from me. These are the things I treasure.

So, friends, I leave you with this: I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want [Philippians 4:12].

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