Lisa Zahn

"The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender." ~Proverbs 22:7 We just paid off the final credit card debt. About $900 was paid off just yesterday, for a total of over $1000 in the last couple of months. Man, does that feel good. That was almost all money we spent on LAST year's summer vacation! It was a wonderful trip for us, but next vacation we'll pay for only with money we actually have. Promise! Because... We don't even have credit cards anymore, besides our debit card. That means our never-ending cycle of using the cards, accumulating and carrying a balance, getting disgusted with ourselves and paying off the cards, then ending up using them again, carrying a balance, getting disgusted, paying them down, etc. is finally OVER. We needed, absolutely needed, to break that pattern. Dave Ramsey's advice to just get rid of the cards once and for all is certainly right on and the freedom we feel knowing we will never use c...

We pulled it off...our Honda is sold, via Craigslist, for a good price. We also found a car we could buy with cash, for $2000. On Tuesday, I put on my dreamy/practical to-do list : find the perfect car . On the vision board I made early this month, pictured below (not my prettiest vision board ever, to be sure, but it's doing the job), I had cut out and pasted a Subaru logo. We used to have a Subaru Forester that was my favorite car ever so I wanted another Subaru. Over the weekend, we had the offer on the Honda CRV and began test-driving, trying several $2000 cars on Sunday and finding nothing we were quite sure about. Monday night George teaches, so we waited until Tuesday to go out again. I asked the potential Honda buyer if we could wait on accepting her offer until later in the week. She said sure. We knew we needed to find another car before we could sell ours. We went to a few places that afternoon. We found a 1997 Subaru Legacy wagon on Craigslist , in a neighboring town. W...

We don't hold family meetings regularly or often, but when we want the kids' attention, we call one to order after dinner. So yesterday, we notified them in advance and called a family meeting. The kids were quite wary beforehand. Turns out, they thought it was all good (except for the announcement of what their summer yard chores would be, ha ha). We told them about our "Mom and Dad Matching Plan": any activity they want to do, they pay half and we pay the other half. So basically, we'll match their money. When I said some people might find us abusive for expecting our kids to cover half their expenses at their age, Rose piped up with, "but mom, no kids I know get a $50 a month allowance!" Woo hoo! We're training them well... We extended our matching program to their future transportation needs and also said they might want to start saving for a car at some point (Eli has only two years before he can possibly get his driver's li...

Go here to enter to win one of five lifetime memberships to Financial Peace University . I don't need to enter because we're already lifetime members, meaning we can take the classes anytime, anywhere forever and our $93 is already paid. But if you haven't joined FPU already, go comment at Simple Mom's post to win! Also, if you look at FPU's webpage under Find A Class , you'll see a list of all the classes near you. Often they're offered at churches, but not always and there's usually several going on in any city. Good luck!