A lot of people
look at me and say “Heath, you talk about saving money for emergencies,
purchases, wealth, and overall good financial health, but how exactly do you do
that?” Okay, so I’ve never actually been
asked that exact question, but I should be sometime. More realistically I get this one: “It’s impossible for me to save money.” Or “How can you guys afford to save so much
cash?” Or “You don’t understand how hard
my life is.” Or even worse: “My
wife/husband spends all my money every month so I have nothing to save.”
Let me be serious
for a moment: Okay, done. Now let me be myself for a moment: You can always come up with a thousand
different reasons NOT to save money, but let me tell you I came up with nearly
10,000 reasons to save money. Her name
is Maggie Hudnall, my adorable and very expensive little girl. You see, when my wife got pregnant a couple
years ago we barely had any money saved up.
We also didn’t
have the best health insurance at the time.
It wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t great either. It had a $4500 maximum out of pocket per
year, which isn’t horrible. However,
when you have a negative net worth, a car payment, a computer payment, and no
discipline with your money, that’s a HUGE amount. Now look at that number and DOUBLE IT. You see, our daughter was conceived in one
year and born in the next, so our max out of pocket had to be paid TWICE. Couple that with the other expenses incurred
and you wind up with a whopping $10 grand for a baby. This was what I refer to as a WAKE UP CALL.
My wife and I
knew something had to change. There was
no way in the world we were going to be able to afford this baby and our other
expenses without some kind of plan. We
knew that, and the money was disappearing fast.
We had to take action. After a
little research and some FANTASTIC timing on God’s part, we went to Dave Ramsey’s
Financial Peace University class. It was
offered at our church, and we jumped on it and took advantage of it.
That class showed
us the potential power of savings. We
saw that paying yourself first was one of the most important things you can
ever do. And we tried it. And it
worked. We got on a budget, first,
and then we realized that we could intentionally decide to put away money every
month for the purpose of paying for the baby and anything else that came
along. And we did. We started piling away the money. I started working overtime left and right to
earn some extra cash. We lived
incredibly frugal, I’m talking no eating out, no movies, no new video games,
and several months of no blow money. At
one point we were chucking over $1000 per month at our savings and baby
bills. We went crazy.
And you know
what? It paid off. No, literally, we paid off the baby bills in cash.
You want to know what feels amazing?
Not having hospital bills following us for months. Because we paid them off. You see, bills are afraid of money; the more
money you have the faster the bills leave.
If you have enough money, the bills turn right around and leave the
second they hit your door. That’s the
best feeling ever. So we stayed in crazy
mode a little longer.
A few months
after my daughter was born we went crazy on my wife’s car, paying the $8000
balance in about four months. All the
while we were still steadily throwing money into our emergency fund every month
and it slowly began to grow. We became
debt free except for our house, we piled up thousands of dollars in the bank,
and we learned to say “no.” Guess
what? It worked.
A lot of people tell
me “well it must be nice to make that much money.” Get over yourself. My wife and I make just above the national
average for a two income home. And I mean
just above. We don’t make a ton of money but we use it
wisely. Ouch, that word, “wisely.” Like, wisdom. We intentionally chose to become wiser with
our money, and let me tell you it worked.
It doesn’t matter
how much money you make. I knew a guy
who made nearly $100,000 per year (after taxes, mind you) and was having
trouble taking care of his family due to his debts and bad spending habits. I also know a guy who makes $1000 per month,
does what he loves for a living, and is completely debt free. It has nothing to do with how much you make
and EVERYTHING to do with how you spend it.
Listen, if you’ve
been reading my stuff and doubting my words, stop it. I’m living proof that it works and anyone can
do it. Buckle down, put your grown up
pants on, and make it happen, otherwise you’ll always come up with some excuse
as to why you can’t. Make it an
intentional goal. Zig Ziglar says if you
aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every single time. Aim at a target of your own creation and
shoot for it every day. You’ll see
tremendous results and your life will change.
It’s no accident
that God says in Proverbs 21:20 that a wise man has stores of food and oil
(wealth in those days) but a fool consumes all he has. It’s no wonder that in the same book of wisdom we’re told to look at the ants,
how they harvest and work and store up for the winter. That’s why Jesus said you can’t build a tower
without first counting the costs, otherwise you’ll look like a fool when push
comes to shove.
Make yourself a
plan and beat those excuses out of your mind.
People like to say they can’t afford to save money. I’ll argue that you can’t afford NOT to. That might be cliché but it’s still Common
Cents.
-Heath
PS: If you didn't get the memo, we've moved over to commoncentsnn.wordpress.com. Check it out, it's much prettier than this version. The move will be final on August 5th so don't miss out!.
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