What Are You Waiting For?

I Write a monthly article in a community publication here in Chino Hills.  Here is my submission for March.

I was waiting to try to out-earn my stupidity.  I was waiting for some miracle,  check to magically appear in the mail.  I was avoiding conversations about money with my wife.  I was a mess!

I know there are more people like this still out there.  This all happened back in 2007 when I thought that I would lose everything.  I had never felt so trapped, so embarrassed, so inadequate, and so powerless.  Then, a good friend of mine mentioned Dave Ramsey.  He said that he had heard a podcast and thought that we could reach out to people who need help by offering his course.  We were sitting in a church leadership meeting at the time and not even my pastor knew what I was going through.  I was too proud and too stupid to let even those who would never judge me know how bad I was hurting.

Here I sit 2+ years later getting ready to celebrate the anniversary of being debt free except the house ($42,881.75 in credit card debt).  It seems like a bad dream but it truly happened.  We are far from being done.  I still have a mortgage to pay off and rental properties to sell.  I refuse to stop until the day comes when I owe nothing to anyone for anything.  The scriptures tell us in Proverbs that the borrower is slave to the lender.  All those years I was a slave to Visa and Mastercard.

I don’t look at my prior financial decision making as such a bad thing.  Because of everything that I have learned, my wife and I have made a commitment to teach others about Dave Ramsey and Financial Peace University.  This is not just a get out of debt class.  It teaches you to take control of your finances and to start working WITH your spouse.  I have a blog where I not only post these articles, but also other items about money, budgeting, relationships and common sense.  You can find it at www.debtmanschest.blogspot.com  If you have questions about your personal situation I can answer them on the blog anonymously; just email me.

I also continue to teach FPU.  I have another class starting the first week in March in Eastvale Corona. Eastvale is just east of The Preserve in Chino by about 5 minutes.  We meet Wednesday nights at River Heights Intermediate School in Corona at 7pm.  Childcare is provided free of charge.

Don’t you think it’s time that you took your life back?  No one is going to bail you out.  No one is going to stimulate you.  You have heard the saying “if you give a man a fish you feed him for a day.  If you teach a man to fish you feed him for life.”  Well, I would like to teach you how to fish.  Time to stop waiting.  Send your questions and comments to alex@ChinoHillsMortgageMan.com.