Budgeting Consulting / Personal accounting services:
I have over 15 years of accounting experience in the business world along with the education to back it up – a bachelor’s degree from Northwood University with a dual major is accounting and management. And of course I graduated with my degree with honors (not tooting my horn or anything). 😉
I also have had the experience of drowning in debt with 2 car payments, a camper payment, mortgage, student loan debt, and credit card debt spread out through as many credit cards as possible. I was working 2 jobs just to pay the minimum payments, already ear marking my upcoming tax return to pay things charged throughout the year prior in which needed to be paid off before interest was going to be added, prorated back to when the charges were made from vacation trips I didn’t have the money for but deemed necessary from working 2 jobs, raising two little children, and going back to school. I deserved it, I told myself. I worked hard and deserved to play just as hard, even though I didn’t have two pennies to pay for it.
Just charge it and worry about it later. I’ll get a raise soon, right? I’ll pick up more work on the side to cover it – something.
I was drowning and after living from paycheck to paycheck, believing I was being savvy with money, I got real tired of shuffling everything. Shuffling the credit cards came of transferring debt for 0% for X-amount of months, hoping the tax return would come in just in time, to rob Peter to pay Paul – no money in the saving, no money for retirement. I got really tired of that rat race.
I was very good at my job as an accountant, keeping my employer on a balanced budget, but I was being weighted down by debt and was getting so damn tired of it. I was so tired I actually did something about it.
I took my knowledge and applied it to my life. I started Financial Peace University, a program through Dave Ramsey, and for the first time in my life, I was on the right track getting my finances straight. I followed his baby steps, I read his book; I was all in. My accounting brain was soaking up everything he was teaching. I hustled to get baby step #1 done. Baby step #2 took over 3 years, being in so much debt.
In the middle of baby step #2, I went through a bitter divorce, getting stuck with the all debt because the ex was an A**hole! So as a single mom of 2 children, I bared $25,000 of debt and the mortgage on the house. Unable to make the monthly payments on the remaining debt (which was around $300/month in minimum payments), I “gazelle-d it” as Dave Ramsey would put it and had that debt paid off within 9 months. (Hint: I sold everything and anything I didn’t need, eat lots of cheap pasta, and any extra dollars were thrown at it. )
Fast forward to today, I am on baby step #4 and excited to be getting close to baby step #5.
Sure anybody can purchase the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University kit and go through the classes – which I HIGHLY recommend doing! It was a HUGE eye opening experience. The kicker is staying accountable and staying with the program. The program isn’t to be looked at as a diet but a change in way of life.
I went through the Financial Peace University program with a person we will call Jill (to keep the person’s identify private). Jill reached baby step #1. Then when I asked how she was doing one day in class, and she stated she had to use the emergency fund. I asked what happened, thinking her car broke down, or something unplanned accrued. She stated, I needed it for rent…… Rent wasn’t an emergency since it is due the same day of every month – completely against what we were being taught.
Fast forward to the present, Jill is not on the Dave Ramsey program and I have the feeling she is going the opposite direction which saddens me.
Moral to telling you about Jill is that, not everyone is disciplined to go through the challenging times to get debt free, into a great place where one can be independent and feel security in providing for oneself.
This is where I would come in with my personal experience and accounting knowledge and background. Budgets excite me! Bank reconciliations excite me! Crunching numbers and then re-crunching them puts me on cloud 9. Yeah, I’m a huge nerd. 🙂
It’s okay asking for help and guidance until you learn the ropes, slowly adjust to the changes, move yourself to having financial freedom. I’m not going to lie, it’s hard work and sacrifices will have to be made to be able to enjoy the freedoms you long for.
Do you want to be free of having debt burdening you down? Do you want the tools of handling money responsibly, something that should be mandatory taught in school so the next generation doesn’t graduate with tens of thousands in debt before they laid their first job towards their career? The next generation is looking at their parents in how to live and handle money. They will pick up our bad money habits; demanding the newest and latest right now without waiting to have the money – drinking champagne on cheap beer wages.
Investing in better money habits, investing in getting rid of your debt, will pay off throughout the years of being on the right financial path, guiding your children along the journey, on the correct path so they will be able to reach their dreams without being weighted down as you have been.
What do you say? Are you ready?
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