Les Miserables?

Am I miserable? Not really.

Marie and I teach Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University class at our church on Sunday mornings. We’ve been through the class ourselves, read all the books and have been able to pay off $38,000 in debt and save $25,000 in about 1 ½ years. I’m very proud of the hard work we’ve put in to do this.

But one of the people in the class asked me “but do you live a normal life?” Another asked me if I was miserable. I had to think about that one for a while. Really, I don’t live any different than I did before. My belly shows that I eat three meals a day. I’m fully dressed and the socks don’t have holes. Ok, one hole, but it is very small. Our car takes me to work. I have God, Marie and my daughter, so I think I’m far from miserable.

No, I don’t live abnormally. But I do live debt free. In America that is abnormal. But like Dave Ramsey says…”Live like no one else so you can live like no one else.”

So maybe I don’t live normally. But I like it.

Marie says…

I like it too, honey.

Fine for Checking Out Books

Scott says…

The library is a fine place for checking out books. Mostly because I incur fines since I can’t seem to get the books back in time. I’m a book junkie as you can tell by the constant book reviews. I’ll read three or more books a week on average. There was a time when I bought most of my books. But once you start keeping a strict budget you find out that books are VERY expensive and food is a necessity.

In order to keep my book budget to a minimum (ok, there is no book budget line but there is a Scott’s discretionary fund which is a whopping $20 per week) I’ve found ways to get books that I want to read without buying them.

1. The public library. This is the best use of government money (my money) in the world! I’m at the library once a week or more. The handy on line reservation system lets me view the available books and have them sent to the local branch. A friendly system call “Elf” let’s me know when the books arrive.

2. Remote library systems. Our county library is plugged in to other libaries such as other state and university library systems. I can get books on loan through this system using the computer as well.

3. Private libraries. When you start asking around you’ll find that most everyone has a stack of books at home. I raid my brother-in-law’s shelves all the time and return the favor by sending him DVD’s from my collection. Another friend of mine sells used books, so I swap out books with her.

4. Book swap. We started a book swap at our company. In the breakroom we placed a large bookshelf and everyone brought in some books. We can check out a book at a time from the shelves, or read them during a lunch break.

5. Club or organization libraries. The model train club I belong to has over 500 members. I got most of them to donate a train related book to a new library. The library now has about 400 rare books that can be checked out by any member for 30 days at no charge.

6. Barnes & Noble or other bookseller. I love to go to book stores and sit and read for free. They have comfy chairs, a great selection of modern titles and I can grab a game of chess occasionally. They get mad when I bring in my Thermos full of coffee, though.

Reading is fun and can be a very inexpensive form of entertainment! Save bucks, read books!

Marie says...

Why don't you tell them how you sit in the library and read Curious George books? And why didn't you mention Border's? What's wrong with my favorite book store?

And The Academy Award For Saving Goes Too…

Scott says…

Marie and I walked away from the theater. It was our date night. Our daughter was at the special “Parent’s Night Out” at her school, we had some extra entertainment budget money left over in our Dave Ramsey Financial Peace envelope system, and we had four hours to ourselves. We enjoyed a fine Chinese meal without using a coupon, which is rare. Then we went to see a movie.

We had two coupons for a free movie. However, when we got there we were informed that we couldn’t use the coupons to see the money we wanted to see because it had not been in the theater long enough. Marie and I looked at the other movies and decided we really just didn’t want to pay full price ($12.00 each) to go to the movie. That would have totally blown the budget. So, we went and had coffee and conversation instead.

Honestly, I enjoyed chatting with my wife more than I would the movie. Really, we don’t sit down and just talk to each other much. Our daughter is always there or we’re working at something or other. Either way, $6.00 worth of coffee made for a very pleasant evening. Saving money is great for your relationship.

Marie Says...

I enjoyed it, too! (wink)

No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

Scott says...

I love to eat out. If it weren't for money I'd eat out every meal. You can look at me and tell that I like to eat out. That's why only Marie's picture is on the blog site. When we started looking at our budget I was absolutely shocked at how much I was spending on restaurants.

Marie told me that I had to stop so I began looking for a way to change my habits. One of the big problems is that I don’t like cold foods, especially sandwiches. The other problem I have is that I feel like I have to get out of the building once per day. This goes back to my factory days when I was trapped in the dark plant building for twelve hours at a time with no window to look out of.

The unknown problem that didn’t make itself apparent until later was that I really just hate making my lunch at night, especially when I’m the one that cleans up the kitchen after dinner. So, to help me, my sweet wife came up with the solution.

She would make me a good, healthy lunch each day that I could heat up in the microwave. This would make it very easy for me. Now all I had to do was figure out how to get out of the office. We do have a park at our office but no picnic tables. My solution is that I’ve started getting books on CD from the library and I sit in my car and listen to books while I eat my lunch. So far this works well when Marie remembers to make my lunch. If she forgets, then I have an assortment of soups in my desk.

Right now I’m saving somewhere around $230 per month!