Between work, business, life, etc. I can’t seem to keep up with weekly updates on blogging things like Financial Peace University. So how about random updates throughout the series with my thoughts? Sounds good!

Tomorrow we will be entering our 5th week of Financial Peace University. Five weeks!

Below are quick recaps of all the weeks so far. I’ve really enjoyed building a solid foundation and growing what I already knew about personal finance. It’s been one of my favorite topics for a while. It relates so closely with health and how you take care of yourself and how you feel about yourself. It’s a very important aspect of your life that is easy to ignore which is why I wanted to blog about personal finance more often.

Financial Peace University class involves attending class once a week for 9 weeks, taking notes, doing some homework, reading Dave Ramsey’s Complete Guide to Money, budgeting your money in an envelope system, and achieving your financial goals!

Financial Peace University Week 2

Relating With Money Nerds and Free Spirits Unite!

Week 2 covered a major concept that is brought up again and again throughout the series: how you relate with money. Dave Ramsey categorizes everyone into the two categories of “money nerds” and free spirits. Then you learn about why it is important to work with your partner with money and how single people can learn about accountability. It also covers how parents can use these concepts to teach kids about money with things like paying commission instead of allowance.

I enjoyed the lesson even if it didn’t give me anything concrete to work on or learn. During the quiz to find out if I’m a nerd or free spirit I scored exactly down the middle. It seems like this happens to me pretty often – I’m usually in the middle rather than an extremist on most things.

Financial Peace University Week 3

Cash Flow Planning The Nuts and Bolts of Budgeting

Week three is where the important stuff starts coming into play. The lesson covered cash flow planning and the nuts and bolts of budgeting. Learning how to budget and taking control of your money with a budget is the start to all the success with this program and almost any personal finance budgeting program! They also cover a cash envelope spending system because you feel it more when you spend cash rather than paying with credit or even debit.

This section of the course was interesting and it made me want to try out cash envelopes for a couple areas of spending. I’m testing it out with my monthly food budget and with my entertainment spending money. These are two areas where I often overspend because I love to eat and go out with friends. I can easily blow my monthly spending with these two categories even with a very meager budget overall. The class comes with a nice little envelope system or you can just use your own with regular envelopes or pouches at home.

I already have a pretty good handle on my spending because I track everything I spend with Mint. However, this sometimes doesn’t force a change in behavior like using cash and running out of money would. That’s why I’m testing out a cash spending plan for several budget categories. It’s my first month doing it and so far, so good! I’ll let you know at the end of the month though because that is where things might get dicey.

Financial Peace University Week 4

Dumping Debt Breaking the Chains of Debt

During week 4 of Financial Peace it’s all about debt and the myths that have popped up around credit and debt in our society. During the lesson Dave Ramsey covers topics that have become accepted as truths, like you have to have a credit card to build credit and you can’t rent a car or shop online without a credit card. He goes through lots of myths and shares the truth about how you can go through life without having everything on credit and being in debt.

This lesson also covers the idea of paying off debt. It utilizes Dave Ramsey’s famous snowball debt repayment plan that has helped thousands of people get out of debt relatively quickly.

The plan relies of being “gazelle intense” which means you focus on something and give it your all because you are in the fight for your life. It’s definitely a often debated style of debt repayment but I’ve found it very effective in the past when I paid off my debt. Focusing on just one thing at a time and going all in helped me make major progress and motivated me to keep going. It’s a concept I think I might have to borrow in some other areas of life soon.

That’s the point we’ve reached in our class with Financial Peace University. I’ve yet to do the homework for week 4 yet but I know my debt payoff is going to be pretty easy with just one debt. I’m glad I waved goodbye to credit card debt and student loan debt a while ago!

Financial Peace University 

If you’re curious about Financial Peace University and would like to take a class, you can sign up for one here. You can also go a cheaper route and just pick up the book that is the companion guide to the class (and honestly covers almost everything word for word): Dave Ramsey’s Complete Guide to Money: The Handbook for Financial Peace on Amazon.