The Whole Debt-Free Thing?

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 Yeah, so back in October my husband and I attended a Dave Ramsay seminar. It was inspiring, it was relevant, it was motivating, and we were going to come home, make a budget, and be debt free within a year. To our credit, we are lucky enough to not carry as much debt as the average American household, but we knew if we didn't change some things we eventually would reach that number.

We had switched back and forth about managing our family's finances for a while, but one thing we had rarely done was sit down and have a budget meeting, and make decisions together. Dave's comments about the roles of the two heads of household and why budget meetings were tough fit us to a tee. My husband makes excel spreadsheets of our income and output, including the amount we pay in taxes and social security, in his free time for fun. 

He also does supernerd things, like this one time when he made himself a fake student ID to get basketball and movie tickets.

I check our balances each week, make payments as I feel like it, and forget our online banking passwords. If you even say "budget meeting" to me I get the hives.

I try to contribute to the family finances in a positive way, too. I am a coupon QUEEN, and love finding good deals. I will not pay more than $2 for a box of cereal or $1 for a pound of pasta. I have a very well stocked pantry, so if we have to go into hiding we'd be okay if we found some clean water.

I have about 4 priorities when I get on the computer for personal use: email, facebook, blog, Amazon. Now and then I might think to Twitter, or shop for bras (that never ends up well), or visit my favorite mommy message board, but I never, ever think "It's time for our budget meeting!"

So, things I like to do to procrastinate on the dreaded budget meeting. Because I am a master procrastinator.

1) Say I want to put a new background on my blog. Since I am HTML-illiterate, this could take upwards of three hours, and is good for multiple excuses.

2) Tell my husband that I couldn't get my blog template to work, so that he spends budget night trying to help me upload a new one.

3) Sign up to be bracket manager for our March Madness pool, and then remind him each night that he needs to get his picks set.

4) Feed my little guy spaghetti for dinner, guaranteeing a bath night.

5) Offer to do laundry for my hubs, and therefore spend multiple hours folding the backlog of clean, wrinkled laundry in the bonus room floor.

6) Make sure there are plenty of back episodes of Kill It, Cook It, Eat It on the DVR.

7) Remind husband that I do occasionally have a blogging deadline, that I procrastinate to the last day (as usual) and I MUST use the computer that night to blog.

I could go on, but I think you get my point!

No, really, next week, we HAVE to have a budget meeting.