Change our Fiscal Nightmare

Practice fiscal responsibility in your own home first.

A sign we should all take to heart

Why in your home first

Anyone can go to a rally and hold up a sign that says “Hold the Pork” or “Stop the Spending.” But it is all for nothing if you don’t start in your own home. As a country that is governed by the people for the people it is no wonder our politicians see fit to use our hard earned money the same way we do. The average American is up to their eye balls in dept, and yes I am just as average as the next person. Like most families mine is only a month or two away from insolvency. The days of overspending and cheep credit are over. But we have the chance now to learn from our past mistakes and make the next recession a little easier by not repeating them. If we want to enact a lasting change in the way our government handles finances we must set the example for our children who will one day mature into our future leaders. We need to take charge of ourselves, learn from our mistakes, pull up our boots, get out of dept and stay that way. There are people who don’t need this advice because they are already practicing what they preach. To them I say thank you and promise the rest of us will catch up soon. I challenge you to get caught up and to live within your means. I challenge you to start putting away for the next rainy day. And I further challenge you to get your children involved in the process so they can see the fruits that are possible when a family goes through things together.

Ideas on implementation

·         Get your monthly bills together make a schedule of payment.

·         Go over what you owe and pay things off one at a time.

·         Find out what you can do without for now.

·         Get a second job to speed things up.

·         Unplug any electronics not in use.

·         Make sure the whole family is involved.

·         Start saving even if it’s only one dollar a month.

·         Get rid of all junk spending.

·         Save up for anything smaller than a car.

·         Reward yourself with a little something every now and then.

How my family is bringing fiscal responsibility into our home

As a new business owner that hasn’t seen a real profit yet I find my family finances are getting tighter by the day. My wife and I owe nearly $50,000.00 in student loans, we have creditors calling for money that doesn’t exist and to make things worse we have a new son that needs all the things a baby needs. We are staying afloat but barely. The thing that really makes our financial position hard on us though is the fact that it is completely our fault. If we hadn't been living as though rough times could never happen to us we would be enjoying ourselves much more now. My wife and I until recently were both secretly very worried about what the future had in store for us. That is until not too long ago when we decided to sit down together and start talking about it. We got together on the floor in our living room with all our bills. We had a huge pile of opened and unopened bills from doctors, creditors, utility companies, service providers and any number of other types. The first thing we did was get rid of all the duplicates and suddenly our stack was much smaller. Then we made two piles, one for monthly bills and the other for things that could wait. We made a schedule of all our incoming and outgoing money and then started seeing what we could do without. After looking at our bank statement we realized we ate out far too much, we didn’t need all the services we were paying for and I needed to keep my eyes closed when in line at the checkout. That was only the first step and I’m not fool enough to think everything is smooth sailing for here on out, but I know that with a whole lot of discipline and an equal amount of time we can dig out together. It’s going to take teamwork on both our sides and a commitment to learn new habits in order to enact a lasting financial change. But we're up to the challenge. are you?

Please feel free to leave your comments on this post. I look forward to any input you might provide. Also feel free to give me ideas how I can improve on this post.