If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that every winter my husband and I do a bet with each other to see who can spend the least amount of money for the longest amount of time. I won all the bets (here’s one of them) up until last year when I lost (sniff).

This year, however, we’re not doing the bet. This year we’re doing a seismic overhaul of how we manage our household finances. It has been revolutionary and I am on fire.

It all started a couple years ago when my friend and her husband took a Dave Ramsey class. She’d fill me in on Dave’s theories and methodology and I’d grill her on the details. I began to think that we might benefit by learning more about The Dave Plan, but my husband didn’t view the new ideas as rosily as I did. His comments ran something like this: “You pay for everything with cash? That’s stupid.”

“But hon, I do better when I pay with cash,” I’d say. “I need to see what I’m spending.”

“Nah, it’s too inconvenient, not to mention too risky. I don’t like it.”

So we continued to bounce along from pay check to pay check (it’s amazing how attached you can get to a non-working plan), spending money when we needed to and wanted to and hoping we didn’t face-plant. Sometimes we’d get sick of all the bouncing and would attempt to get control of the situation, but it never stuck and soon we’d be back in the good old Sliding By Position.

A note of clarification: our financial situation wasn’t dire, as far as financial situations go. We didn’t have credit card debt, and John possessed a fairly good understanding of how our money moved. (We’ve since learned that understanding how our money moves is very different from controlling how our money moves.)

Then last fall my friend loaned me her Dave Ramsey book. I slurped it up, and when she informed me that a new Dave class was opening up, I planted myself in front of John and informed him that we needed to take it. He, wisely, agreed. So every Tuesday evening for the past eleven weeks (two more to go!) we’ve been meeting at a local school for our two-hour sessions; the first hour we watch a DVD of Dave and the second hour is class discussion.

Far and away, the best thing this class has done for us is—and this can not be overestimated—it has put us on the same page, hallelujah! We now share a framework with which we can talk about money. John agrees that paying for things with cash is perhaps a wise idea, and we plan to get rid of our household credit card in the near future (we’ve switched to debit) and—

Whoa, whoa, whoa, let me back up. For those of you who aren’t familiar with either Dave Ramsey or his Financial Peace University (the fancy name for our class), here is a sample of a couple of the main ideas:

*people spend 12-18% more when they use a credit card than when they use cash (even when paying off the credit card every month), so use cash
*rainy days will happen; plan for them
*never get a loan for a car or anything for that matter (except a house and college, if you must)
*financial peace means having a plan and sticking to it

Dave’s financial plan is comprised of a series of baby steps, the first three of which are:
1. put aside a thousand dollars in an emergency fund
2. snowball your debt
3. save 3-6 months of living expenses (which is step one expanded)

There are more steps, but since they’re the ones that John and I are working on right now, they are all I’ll mention. I don’t want to overwhelm myself (or you).

This class has challenged me to not only change how I handle money, it’s also challenged me to rethink how I view money. I somehow got the idea growing up (in a series of Mennonite churches and with halfway-granola Mennonite parents) that money is bad. We were to avert our eyes from it, and not depend on it, talk about it, or roll in it. People who had a lot of money were entangled in its snares. Not being controlled by money meant not having any. ‘Cause didn’t Jesus tell us to sell everything and follow him?

These teachings still persist. Just the other week we had a Sunday church service that revolved around money. The classic Do Not Worry About What You Will Eat Or Drink scripture was duly intoned, and there was much talk about trusting God and good stewardship and yadda yadda yadda. Inside I was screeching, Don’t tell us not to worry! Tell us what we can DO so we can STOP worrying! Which is completely anti-Everything I’ve Been Taught because not worrying about money is all about faith, right?

Wrong! If faith means turning a blind eye to finances and just hoping things work out, than I want none of it. (Which is probably not what any church leaders intended us to do—the turning a blind eye part—but when we’re given mystical, floaty, o-happy-day teachings in place of concrete advice, general clueless-ness is the unintentional side effect.)

What does work is getting A Financial Education and A Plan and Sticking With It. Scrutinizing our spending habits, naming where the money goes, and working with what I have and ONLY with what I have, has provided me more peace than anything I’ve ever done.

(I can share more of the nitty-gritty details regarding our allocated spending plan and envelope system, if you’re interested—just give a shout-out in the comments. But if not, no prob. I don’t want to drag you all through our money dirt [which is not to be confused with pay dirt].)

Three Post Blog Post Disclaimers
1. Dave Ramsey does not know who I am.
2. I do not agree with everything Dave Ramsey says.
3. Dave Ramsey sometimes gets borderline Prosperity Gospel-ish which turns my stomach—when he gets going like that I just plug my ears and chant, I’m not listening I’m not listening.

I am so used to my children’s weird antics and creative games that my nerves have numbed.

For example, I look out the window and see one of my daughters using the deck railing as a balance beam and think, Now THAT would hurt if she fell, and then I go on about my business.

Or, I watch as my girls (again), who for some odd reason are standing in the middle of the poopy chicken yard, run at top speeds for the fence and then try, unsuccessfully, to hurdle it and the only thought that crosses my mind (beside, Oooo, Papa isn’t going to like that) is, I ought a turn that fence on. That would teach ‘em good.

So yesterday when my boys and Company Boy were mountain climbing the clubhouse and then repelling back down, I just stretched myself out in the grass and took pictures.

At one point Company Boy was at one end of the rope that was strung through the clubhouse and my little boy was at the other—the general idea being that Company Boy would jump out the clubhouse door and hoist my baby up into the air in the process. I had my camera sights fixed on them when Company Boy clued in to the fact that I was lying right there and he was about to do something potentially dangerous with my youngest child. He turned to me and asked politely, Um, do you mind if I do this?

Nah, it’s fine, I assured him.

So he jumped (and nothing happened).

Then this morning while I was planting rhubarb, radishes, lettuce, and more spinach, my son rigged up a swing. ‘Cause if you think an industrial sized swing set is enough for my children, then you’d be wrong.

This time I did intervene from my spot in the lettuce patch. “Hey!” I hollered. “You need to brace that board!”

“I did,” he hollered back. I decided I’d take his word for it.

When I walked over later to take pictures, I saw he had braced it, sure enough.

What a good boy.

Then I looked down at the massive amounts of rope circling the clubhouse. “What’s all the rope for?” I asked.

“So the swing doesn’t slide off.”

“Oh, right. Okay then.”

I headed back to the garden to weed the strawberries and soon the kids came over to the barn where they rigged up a ramp and took turns shooting out of the barn on the wagon.

In between and around these activities, the girls decided to scrub (yes, scrub) the chicken coop (but I stopped them because I didn’t want them to mess with the chickens’ prime laying time), my son asked me if I had flour (huh? you’re asking me if I have flour? what ails you, child!), I stopped my daughter from watering the strawberries, I stopped my daughter from watering the mulch, and I made two kids get out of the pile of horse manure.

(I’m quite excited about that horse manure. Out on a walk with my sister-in-law yesterday, I passed our neighbors driving around in their pick-up. Or rather, they passed us, several times, in fact. Finally I yelled at them, “What’s wrong? You lost?” in kind, neighborly fashion. And then their little puppy started chasing us down the road so I had to scoop him up and shove him in the cab window at them. The one guy asked, “Hey, whadda I have to do to get some more of those cinnamon buns?” [He was referring to the buns I made for the hog butchering.]

“You have any manure?” I shot back.

“Sure do!”

Within an hour I had me some horse manure, and today when he gets home from work, he’ll have him some cinnamon buns. Ain’t country living great?)

One final thing before I wrap this up, when my parents stopped by this past weekend, my father introduced my children to the live cam of the bald eagles’ nest. There are three little babies (they hatched last week), and the parents take turns sitting on the nest. This morning over our bowls of oatmeal and canned peaches, we watched as the eagles fed their babies. The kids were thrilled.

I’d leave it on all the time if it wasn’t so distracting—every time the babies chirp more loudly or the parents call, the kids drop everything and run to the computer.

(Check out the fluctuating number of viewers listed at the bottom of the window—a hundred thousand are on at any given time.)

P.S. After writing this, I started loading photos and got up to look out the window to check on the kids. This was what I saw.

I rest my case.

This same time, years previous: asparagus with lemon and butter, new territory: grief, the kind of day, in all seriousness, peanut butter frosting, cream of tomato soup

It’s raining outside, my eyes are still burning holes in my head and now my nose is running faster than Idon’tknowwhat, but the good news is (or maybe the bad?) that I discovered we can watch instant videos on Netflix. So after a morning of rock reading, map studying, geography game playing, piano practicing, keyboarding, quiche-making, and chores, the kids and I huddled around the computer and watched a National Geographic movie on tornado chasers. It was so tension-inducing (at least for my tender children) that my oldest trembled rather violently.

It is woefully misleading of me to count the rain as one of the day’s downer. I’m actually quite happy it’s raining. After last summer’s drought, I still feel a little thrill whenever we get a good soaker (pleasepleaseplease let there be leisurely rains sprinkled throughout this upcoming summer), and I welcome the cozy warmth of my house when the clouds duck low and dark. All I mean by listing rain along with my other physical ailments is that it’s a day to hunker down and take easy. So I am.

How about I take advantage of this slow, wet day and show you some pictures of some recent sunniness?

First, an update on the fort. A deck/porch/addition is in the works.

Two ladders are now needed in order for the builder to get to the top of his wood slab mountain.

The other week we had severe winds and rain storms (I kept jars of water on the counter for days in case the power went out) and one morning after a particularly rough night, my kids called me down to the fort to take a tour. They ordered me to take off my soggy boots at the door, and stocking-footed, I walked over dry carpet.

Despite its plush indoor facilities, my kids don’t hang out in the fort that often. They’d rather work on the fort than play in it.

Second, the kids and I went on a walk.

We walked about two-tenths of a mile down the road and then turned around and walked home. It was a complete non-event.

Third, my grandmother gave my kids (via my mom) a Christmas table decoration—a sled filled with wrapped packages—made completely out of candy.

My daughter rigged up a string harness for it, attached it to a dinosaur, and stuck a Santa on back.

Then we ate the candy over the course of the next few days. One of the packages was a pack of bubble gum.

I joined in the bubble-blowing fun and my daughter documented it for you.

Fourth, yesterday afternoon my kids played with the wheelbarrows.

They raced around the yard, pushing and dumping each other.

I used to do this when I was a kid. Once I filled a wheelbarrow with old blankets and pillows, arranged an umbrella above it to keep out the sun, and then plunked my baby brother in it and pushed him around the block. He fell asleep.

Fifth, my daughter is still in love with hats.

Sixth, all my children are in love with sticks.

One of my old beater rocking chairs fell apart and they immediately stripped it down for parts—the rungs. They bind the ends with masking tape (not sure why), fashion belts for the holders (or else push the sticks through the loops on their jeans), and walk around fully armed.

Sticks aren’t allowed in the house, so I confiscate them as soon as they walk in the door. Right now there are four up on top of the fridge, my you-may-not-touch-the-stuff-up-there place.

This same time, years previous: in which I post an excessive amount of pictures and homemade Parmesan cheese