Episode 15 - Financial Peace

Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired?  

10 years ago, I discovered a money plan that changed my life.  

Today, I'm going to discuss:

• History 
  • My own journey towards Financial Peace.  
• Current Status
  • Where I am with regard to where I wanted to be
• Trajectory
  • Future Plans

I will also share encouraging stories and statistics from people just like you.

For example, in the very first Financial Peace University course I coordinated:

Total debt the class paid off

• $11,043  (Non-Mortgage Debt)

Money Saved

• $20,350

Credit Cards Cut Up

• 30

Lives Changed

• 15

Giving for the First Time

• 2

Giving Significantly More

• 3

Join a Financial Peace University class and get involved in a community that will change your life in ways that you can't even imagine.  Ask me how to do so and I'll connect you with people that can answer your questions if I'm not able to do so myself.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:03

Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired? Ten years ago, I discovered a money plan that gave me the tools to change my life. And today we're going to talk about exactly that. Welcome to another episode of the All Around Growth Podcast, everybody. My name is Rob Kaiser, and I am your host. Today's October 16th, 2020. And we are going to discuss my history and my own journey towards financial peace, current status, where I am with regard to where I wanted to be, and also my trajectory for the future, my plans for the future, and how financial peace dovetails into that quite nicely. Looks like they're okay. Okay. Um in addition to talking about my history, current status update, and a little bit of talk about the future, I also want to share some encouraging stories and statistics from people just like you. Alright, so let's get right into it. What is my history with financial peace? Quite frankly, it's not very good. Alright, I first stumbled across Dave Ramsey and the concept of financial peace like literally 10 years ago. I was in my early 30s and I thought it was a big deal. Driving around in my company truck, I was uh still in the green industry, but I decided to take a little bit different uh avenue at that time, work my way up the proverbial corporate ladder. I was doing a lot of traveling, I was on the road a lot. I was uh Chicago was my primary area where I worked when I did work out of state, and that was you know, 75% of the time I was on the road, so I was listening to a lot of talk radio. A couple things were happening at that time. I realized that all of the news everywhere sounded the same, and people were saying the same thing. It was an echo chamber. That's what AM talk radio felt like, and it didn't matter if I listened to you know conservative shows or shows of a more liberal progressive lean. But we're not going to talk about that today. When I first heard Dave Ramsey on the radio, it was a refreshing change of pace talking about solutions to people's money problems. And I liked that. I liked that so much that I first learned how to navigate podcasts on my Blackberry so I could listen to his show outside of the radio hours when which it was being broadcast. Okay, so as I began to listen to more Dave Ramsey, and as I began to learn more about this whole financial piece bit, everything began to make sense. You know, these were just these were things that I didn't learn about so much growing up that we didn't really talk about. I mean, you know, for example, in my early 20s, uh, I went through a bankruptcy. In my early 20s, I had racked up more thousands of dollars in credit card debt than I had years in life. And finally, when I had uh or when I went through a car accident and had to get cut out of my 1988 Subaru DL, and then was able to buy another Pontiac Grand Am for 800 bucks or whatever, and the head gasket blew on that thing. I didn't have a vehicle living in Colorado, beyond broke, desperate and hopeless, I moved back to Ohio to try and regroup my life. I went through a bankruptcy, I thought there was no other option. By the time I was hearing Dave Ramsey in my mid-30s, I had already racked up probably another $7,000, $8,000 of debt. And eventually I moved out to California a year or two after that, kind of lost touch with things, continued to rack up more debt, and finally when I was living on my own out there, like you know, seven, eight years ago, I started listening again, and I started getting more intense and coming up with creative solutions with my own day job and how I could structure that to benefit me the most and get out of debt the fastest, as well as move back to Ohio to help my parents grow and develop the land that they had were hoping to build on at that time. Now, I did this and I landed my final project in Austin uh nine years ago, and at that time I was uh I was making a pretty good wage, also receiving uh per diem living expenses, and I had paid off 99% of my debt. I just had a couple outstanding payments to make to, you know, family or friends for a couple hundred bucks that I'd borrowed at some point, but I was pretty much debt-free. I was consuming a lot of content created by Dave Ramsey, but I wasn't really following the baby steps and the plan outlined in Financial Peace University. By the time I moved back here in 2013, I got very caught up in the permaculture and small farm homestead movement, if you will. I accrued a lot of debt chasing other people's dreams and doing things that I thought I could or I should do rather. And it was basically a hippie permaculture redneck way of keeping up with the Joneses, except all of the Joneses were you know how it is. Because you've been there too. And then all of a sudden, just a few years ago, I realized I was back in the same boat where I was 20 years ago. $23,000 in debt, feeling hopeless and miserable. I got sick and tired of being sick and tired. I embraced the Dave Ramsey program. Not only did I listen, I began to act. And go on, woman. There you go. Um I attended my first financial peace university course at a small church in Wellington, Ohio. And I uh for the for that year, I continued to work the program in a Dave-ish way. I only paid off a few thousand dollars of debt. Finally, I attended the course again at another local, more local church, Heartland Community Church. I met good people. It motivated me and inspired me. I began to connect with other members of the class. Third year I attended it again for a second time and I really got intense. I really embraced all the principles and I made significant progress. The following year, just last year, I decided that the best accountability I could ever have would be leading a course, myself coordinating a course. So I contacted Ramsey Solutions, I looked into that and I learned what it would take to be a financial peace coordinator, and though even I wasn't out of debt completely, I was still able to coordinate a class. And by that time, because I felt compelled to return to the church, based on my experiences at Heartland Community Church, I explored a couple of churches, that being one of them, but ultimately decided to begin attending the United Church of Christ in the square, on the historic square in Medina, downtown Medina. Now, after becoming a member of that church, six months later I had contacted the staff there and began inquiring about what it would take to host a Financial Peace University course. I learned, and accordingly, with their help, we made it happen. Now in that one course, it's important to point out that 15 people were in it, and over the course of 13 weeks, collectively we paid off $11,000, $11,043. Collectively, 15 people saved $20,350. Over the course of those 13 weeks, we cut up 30 credit cards. Over the course of those 13 weeks, 15 lives were changed. Over the course of those 13 weeks, two people started giving to charity for the first time. And over the course of those 13 weeks, three other people began giving significantly more. So that's sort of a status update of where I am with regard to Financial Peace University and how it's changed my life and how I am working on achieving financial peace. I myself just paid off my debt in June of this year, in the middle of the pandemic. There's been a lot of sacrifices that have come in order to make that happen, including not even finishing much of the work that needs to be done in the place in which I live. But we make sacrifices to achieve the goals that we want. One of the goals that I want is financial freedom. Financial peace. So I would encourage you, if that's something that you want, to join a financial peace university class at a church near you. And moreover, try to get involved with a church, not necessarily where you begin taking the Financial Peace University course, but try to find a church or some way to engage your community and participate with your community so that you can feel good about giving back to your community. And all of this, all of this started with me, and the the path in which I chose to get to or to work towards Financial Peace University, or simply financial peace. Financial peace university was one of the ways in which I began working towards financial peace in general. So again, I'd encourage you strongly to join a Financial Peace University class. And if you have any questions on how to do so, please reach out and contact me, let me know, and I will answer any questions that you have. And if there are questions that you have that I cannot answer, I will connect you with people that can, or I will find an answer for you. Alright, that's it, everybody. That's where I'm at on financial peace. I look forward to more updates in the future about how this is going to continue integrating into my life. I will share that with you as it happens. So thank you again for listening. I sure do appreciate it. I appreciate all the new listeners to the podcast. And for everyone that is new, please join us in the All-Around Growth Facebook group. And also check out the Telegram app. It is basically like a text message app, but it is better. And it's private. So we have an all-around growth group chat there as well. I would definitely encourage you to check it out and join us there for a different type of dialogue than what takes place on Facebook. But either way, join us in whatever platform suits you best. Look forward to seeing you there. Look forward to having you with us on the next episode as well. Thanks everyone.