Did you know?

Okay so I usually don't use my blog as a soap box, but I found out something pretty cool that I thought I would share with you. As you probably know I attended BYU and got my bachelor's degree in Business Management with an emphasis in Finance. I never loved the corporate/political side of business. My interest is more in the personal finance side of things. Which is probably why I'm a loan officer at a credit union and never pursued anything "bigger". My favorite, most useful class was Business Management 418 - Personal Finance from Bryan Sudweeks. I still refer to the information I got from that class.

One Sunday when I was wandering the halls during Relief Society, or was it Sacrament? It was one of those meetings that Brockston didn't want to sit through quietly... I was reading the bulletin board and saw a flier about BYU Online Courses and noticed that they offer FREE classes. Did you know that? I sure didn't. So I thought I would check it out. There are lots of different classes like religion classes, music, family life, math, family history and gardening. I want to make sure it's clear the free classes are not for credit.

I found a Personal Finance course, PFIN 70, that was done by Professor Sudweeks and found much of the same material that he used in class. Lots of awesome information, if you have the time to check it out I recommend it. If nothing else might I suggest checking out the section on budgeting. He has created an excel spreadsheet for a budget that you can download (Learning Tool 4: Budget,Balance Sheet and Financial Statement). This is the budget Nate and I have been using since our first year of marriage. All the work is done for you you just have to fill in the information and keep track. You can modify some things to fit your personal expenses as well.

A few months into our marriage we sat down and decided to do the budget. It was eye opening to see what our money was going towards. We quickly realized I was not allowed to go grocery shopping by myself or without a list because I spent way too much. We also realized that we wanted to pay Nate's car off as quickly as we could and start saving so that we could have a good down payment on a house. We were able to pay off Nate's car within several months and with no other debt we started saving away. With the help of our budget we were more conscientious of where our money was going and we often thought twice about purchases because we wanted to save as much as we could. When we were ready to purchase our house after three years we had saved quite a big chunk of money and we are so grateful that we were able to do so.

The Visiting Teaching Message for the month of February focuses on managing resources wisely and staying out of debt. Sister Julie B. Beck, Relief Society General President said this:

“What skills do we need to help us become self-reliant? … In the early days of the Church, Brigham Young pled with the sisters to learn to prevent illness in families, establish home industries, and learn accounting and bookkeeping and other practical skills. Those principles still apply today. Education continues to be vitally important. …

“I asked several bishops what self-reliance skills the sisters in their wards needed most, and they said budgeting. Women need to understand the implications of buying on credit and not living within a budget. The second skill bishops listed was cooking. Meals prepared and eaten at home generally cost less, are healthier, and contribute to stronger family relationships.”

I think keeping track of spending in some sort of budget is very important. I hope maybe someone out there finds this information useful. It has been to me and my family.