Thursday, March 22, 2012

Another One Bites the Dust

Well, we just paid off a student loan. With the help of our move, and our tax return, we knocked off over $4,000 in 3 months! :-) We are on our way! Only one loan left, it is large, but we have almost cut our debt in half since we started Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University less than 2 years ago!

Our next round of FPU starts the Monday after Easter at Sandals Church. We will be facilitating the class again. We were so blessed by those in our previous class, we are looking forward to making some new FPU friends and will have some help from some old FPU friends. Several people from the previous class were so impacted by the dramatic changes, that they wish to help others in their financial journey as well. I am a little bummed that Sandals was unable to get a preview video done to share with the church how much FPU has helped those that came to the class, but I know that we are still making a big impact in the lives of many families.

Any way, the count down begins. Our schedule to complete debt relief is 2016... I would LOVE to eliminate it much faster, and we probably will. Thank you to those that have been praying for us and encouraging us on our road to debt freedom!

Blessings!

Mindie Gilliland

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Book Review: The Richest Man In Babylon

Continuing with my goal to read one book a month (or more) I have completed the finance book called, "The Richest Man in Babylon," by George S. Clason.


I am already starting to learn a pattern between each of the three books that I have read so far. They all require life style changes in order to accomplish your financial goals, and not just "spend less money here-" fill in the blank. The setting of this book takes place in ancient Babylon when it was once one of the richest locations. The Richest Man was a man named Arkad, and through a group of tales the book takes you through different stories of men earning a living and becoming wealthy while following several principals for spending and making money.

Some of my favorite quotes from this book were:

"In those things toward which we exert our best endeavors we succeed."

"He who takes advice about his savings from one who is inexperienced in such matters, shall pay with his savings for proving the falsity of their opinions."

"Opportunity is a haughty goddess who wastes no time with those who are unprepared."

"Better a little caution, than a large regret." In terms of poor investing/loans.

"Where the determination is, the will can be found." This is a really great chapter about having hope and getting out of debt. This chapter is called, "The Camel Trader." It reminded me a lot about our situation- lots of debt, but working our way out of it.

Each chapter gave different principals (some more similar than others) on how to make and save money.

For example, one chapter had three guidelines:
1. Live on less than you earn.(Delayed gratification)
2. Seek advice from those competent.
3. Make gold (money) work for you.

There is a chapter that talks about Seven cures for a lean purse. Which then explains how to earn money, even if you don't make a lot. Another chapter discusses the five laws of Gold, following these will make you wiser (yeah, read the book to learn more). Another chapter talks about the rewards of hard work and blessings.

This was a much shorter book than my previous book, but I really enjoyed reading it. There is a little bit of Babylon history in the back of the book as well, pretty fascinating stuff. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in seeking out financial (and living) wisdom!

Financial Blessings and Health to you all!

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Rose Mae Glenn

My Great Grandma Rose Mae Glenn just passed last week. I was unable to attend the funeral (it was in Fresno, CA). My uncle Tony Glenn put together a pretty cool video of some memories of her. She was almost 93 years old, she was married for 70 years, had 2 children, 3 grand children, 7 great grandchildren (I think) and 7 great great grandchildren (I think). She was a pretty amazing woman. The picture you see before the video starts is my Grammie with me (I think). Here is the video:
Thank you Uncle Tony for putting that together!