Have you heard of FPU, Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University class? We are in the midst of the 9 week class (remember we shared when we signed up for FPU here) and we assume many of you have money questions we thought we’d share with you some of the points of the class each week.
You can find out more about FPU on Dave Ramsey’s website, or find a local class in your area.
You can also read about our week one recap.
FPU Journey
It was very low key and relaxed as all 12 or so of us entered the classroom for week 2 of FPU. We noticed that there were two new people in attendance, one seemed to be in her early 20’s and the other was a retired widow. It is amazing the vast variety of people that are attracted to finding out how to be smarter with their money. We also noticed that one couple was not in attendance, and the instructors did not seem to know why. Hopefully it was just something that prevented them from attending this week and they have not dropped out.
We went over our quick budget homework, not disclosing any personal numbers out loud but just making sure that everyone put their figures on paper. You can see Dave’s quick budget form here (scroll down to the bottom).
Another part of our homework was to total up all the non-mortgage debt that we had, and to calculate how much cash you could put your hands on if you needed to (not including any invested retirement funds).
We all filled out a card listing the debt total and the cash available total and turned them in to the leader. It was anonymous. During the class video we watched, the instructor totaled up the cards and then announced our class totals. It was staggering.
- Total non-mortgage debt of those in attendance: $220,500.00
- Total available cash: $33,000
Isn’t that a big number? Astounding, and this is probably an accurate snapshot of many people today.
Week 2’s class video was focused on how people relate to money, men and women and the “nerds” and the “free-spirits”. Dave presented the information in his usual engaging and entertaining manner. He is a brilliant speaker. After the video there was a quick survey to fill out in our work book to determine what our personalities were like. There were no real surprises with the results – Jim is more a free spirit and I am the nerd. We both admit there were some questions where we could have gone either way on, or somewhere in between but for the most part I think it was an accurate interpretation of our personalities. What is great is that neither is wrong, and they often compliment each other.
At the close of class we talked a bit about week 3, which is where we learn much more about making the budget. Most of the class is focused around the budget, so we are really looking forward to week 3.
Stay tuned for another update and remember if you want to find out more about Dave Ramsey or FPU – there is a ton of online information here.
