"Financial Peace Revisited" by Dave Ramsey

Yes, ANOTHER book post! I finished about 3 books this past week, but this book I had actually been reading since around November. I may have mentioned this before, but Rich and I enrolled in the online "Financial Peace University" course around November. For the package we paid for, we received 16 weeks of online access to the online videos for the course, as well as downloading the workbook that accompanies the course (and the audio version of all of the video sessions), and they also send you Dave's book that is supplemental reading for the course. 

A little background info - Dave Ramsey is a Christian financial expert whose basic underlying goal is to help every man and woman get out of debt, get an emergency fund, get a savings plan, have a secure and substantial retirement fund, and be successful in life. 

Rich and I took this course together, and I HIGHLY recommend it for everyone - whether you are single, married, divorced, old, young...you will benefit! One thing that was never really touched on in our early marriage classes were finances and the importance of being on the same page. As Dave Ramsey says, in every marriage there is almost always one "free spirit" and one "nerd." I'm sure you can guess which one I am and which one Rich is. :-)  That affects everything from spending to budgeting to...well, EVERYTHING. I wish we would have done this sooner. Because, just like in raising children, buying a house, or any other major decision, finances MUST be done together and both spouses must be on the same page in order to be successful. It CANNOT be the philosophy of "one person handles it all and the other one is in the dark."

I won't go into detail, but as we moved to Colorado, grew our family, etc... we were stupid and ran into debt. The largest of our debt is a personal loan my mom extended to us for house repairs. Buying a "fixer upper" is fantastic if you get a great deal and can do most of the work yourself, which is true for us. However, if I could go back and redo it, I would have NOT taken a loan and just "lived" with the mess and issues for a while longer and paid cash for everything. Anyway, for a long time this debt has bothered me b/c I never had debt. Even living in the 2nd most expensive (or maybe most expensive) state in the U.S. (Hawaii) while making only $19,000...I always lived on a tight budget and never carried a credit card balance or debt of any kind. It BOTHERS me to have debt. So, I am VERY thankful for this course! :-)

The book is fabulous and even if you cannot take the Financial Peace University course, you need to read this book. Even if you aren't in debt...even if you already have a good savings account - READ THE BOOK. Dave sets up 7 easy steps for financial success. 

The first step is to have a $1,000 emergency fund. Once this is set up, you CUT UP EVERY CREDIT CARD. Then you pay off all of your debts in a structured way, which Dave calls the "Debt Snowball", starting with the smallest debt first. Then, once you get rid of all debt (outside of your mortgage), you save 3-6 months of money that will pay all of your bills, so that in case something should happen, you know you have that safety net to carry you through until something else comes along. VERY SMART - being the constant worrier I am, having safety nets are huge for me. Once you have that done, you start working simultaneously on saving for retirement, investing, and also saving for your child's college. 

This course was a major blessing to us, and we have learned so much. We even learned some great things to help our children learn at an early age the importance of "give, save, spend" and how to raise them to be excellent stewards of what God has given them. This isn't a "get rich quick" course. It is all about making your money work for you, being a good steward of what God has given you, and later being able to give back to others as God has blessed. 

I won't share our level of debt because I know my husband would KILL Me - and it's different for everyone. But I will say that we implemented our new "super strict" budget on January 1st. I set up our budget and did all of the math since I'm the nerdy "I love this stuff!" type of person but had Rich go over it all with me. We had 3 areas of debt and with the budget we live on (Rich has a good job but we aren't making heaps of money, we will soon have 3 kids, and I don't "work" at a "paying job" to stay home with our children right now), I figured it would take us 4.7 years to pay everything off, with the first debt in the "debt snowball" taking about 19 months to pay off. The Lord started to immediately bless us with a completely UNEXPECTED bonus, a job promotion for Rich, and just a few extra things here and there. What should have taken 19 months looks like it will be gone in 6 months. That's right...6 months. We are psyched to see all that God is doing and is teaching us! 

One night in November, we cut up EVERY SINGLE CREDIT CARD. So scary but also SO FREEING!!!! There were a bunch more than this but I had already thrown out a bunch. (Rich cut the "cool pattern" in them. Hence - his "free spirit" while my nerdy self was cutting them up into a billion pieces and making sure card numbers and names were totally obliterated. :-))

"In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer" by Irene Gut Opdyke

In the past week I read another amazing book that was recommended to me by another dear friend. As soon as I saw the title I thought, "Wait a second...I think I HAVE that book!" :-) One of my most favorite things to "shop" for (since I'm not much of a shopper at all) is books. In fact, when I was single and teaching, I'd give myself a little treat now and again and walk 1 1/2 miles to the mall and then spend HOURS in Borders, gathering books and spending the extra money I earned from tutoring after school. However, because of a very demanding teaching/grading schedule, I almost never had time to read, so I had stacks of books all over my bedroom. And if you know me at all...that spells HEAVEN to me. :-) So now, as I finally have settled into this house and fallen into a "routine" of sorts with the kiddos and housework, I am starting to be able to dive in to the huge pile of books I own and mark them off my list! (And by "list" I mean like "Epitome of Nerdness" in that I have an Excel spreadsheet alphabetically listing every single book Rich and I own, as well as a separate column for "Read".)

Anyway, I found this little treasure on one of my bookcases and dove right in. It is fabulous. I've read many books on the Holocaust survivors, but I believe this is one of the first that I've read of a Holocaust rescuer. I won't give too much of the story away, but this book is an autobiography that is well written, easy to follow, and attention-grabbing from the start. Irene is a young woman growing up in Poland that soon finds herself at nursing school many miles away from her family when the Germans invade Poland. What follows is her incredible tale of survival, sorrow, pain (she was raped by soldiers as she was trying to escape capture), and determination. She ends up working for a German officer as a housemaid while using his very own house to hide Jews in the basement. She is an amazing woman, and this book is absolutely fantastic! I think I finished it in about 5 days of reading at night before bed! I also enjoyed the pictures that were placed in the book - I love having real faces to go with the family and friends and survivors that she describes in the book!

Teaching Disclaimer: This book is fabulous for an older teen girl to read and would work well if you are teaching on WWII and want some supplemental reading. However, rape is mentioned. It is in no way graphic at ALL (basically just mentions, "I was raped") or distasteful but if your child doesn't know what rape is, it could lead to questions. She also is forced into a physical relationship with the German officer she is a housekeeper for. Again - no real details are mentioned, and she isn't explicit, but that topic also comes up. (I.E. "I slept in his bed." or "That night I found myself in his room.")

"Evidence Not Seen" by Darlene Deibler Rose

I finished this book several days ago, but have been sick with this pregnancy and unable to blog about it until now! I was told about this book by a friend and fellow book-lover. Wow, is this book fantastic! 

It is set during the time period of WWII and is another autobiography. If you remember from my last book blog entry, I had finished the book "Unbroken" - a biography of a POW imprisoned in Japan during WWII. This book also features a POW during WWII, but she was held in a Japanese camp located in New Guinea. Darlene Deibler Rose was a missionary with her husband to New Guinea. Soon after they arrived, though, WWII broke out and the Japanese quickly took over the island. I won't give major details away but she is captured and interred in a Japanese POW camp away from her husband. Written in her own words, this incredibly journey of faith challenged me so often in my own walk. To have faced such devastating circumstances and witnessed such atrocious things and yet still have a heart of love for people (and her captors, no less!) and the work of God was quite a rebuke to my own passive, easy life. One thing that continually impressed me was her vast bank of Scripture memory. She was able, although stripped of her Bible, to continually encourage herself and others with verses she had memorized as a child, teen, and young adult.  She took on a role of leadership in her barracks, held daily devotionals for her fellow inmates, and witnessed multiple times to her Japanese head of camp. It is virtually impossible to walk away from this book without continually seeing the goodness of God and the miracles He accomplishes in and through His faithful children!

I HIGHLY recommend this book!

Education note: If your teen (probably more geared for a 9th-12th grader unless your junior higher reads at an accelerated level) is needing to find an autobiography or historical book to read or do a book report on, this would be the perfect book!