Lanny Joe's dad Noel was a hard-working role model for Lanny. Lanny remembers that when he was a little boy he decided to start a paper route business and turn the money over to his mother Mildred. He felt so manly. He could barely read, but he plopped down in the recliner and proceeded to read a newspaper. He turned the pages and yawned like a tired father. He even tried shaving but couldn't reach the mirror. When he put some coffee in his milk, he complained that it was cold.
Equipped with the money savvy of our parents and the experiences through our adulthood, Lanny Joe and I enrolled in the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University to ensure we'd begin our marriage on the same page . . . of smudged newsprint. Dave Ramsey's first advice was to cut up our credit cards. He said there are three dimensions to credit cards: length, width, and debt. And, his perspective was that if you want to make a small fortune in the commodities market, you need to start with a large fortune.
Our first assignment was to prepare a weekly budget as amiably as possible (The swelling in Lanny's right eye has gone down significantly). We listed the food that we buy and eventually eat at $50. The food that we buy and store in the back of the refrigerator until we have to throw it out because it looks like the latest charred carcass in the autopsy room of NCIS came in at $75. The pennies that we get as change and put in a jar, intending to someday put in wrappers and take to the bank, when in fact we will die well before we ever get around to it totaled $137.23. Utilities, clothing, car payments, insurance, Breathe-Right strips, dog treats, scratch-off lottery tickets and Ben-Gay added up to $997.01. Miscellaneous came in at a whopping thirty-seven-hundred dollars! Maybe we should cut back on our carbon paper purchases.
As you can see, there are a lot of expenses associated with running a household, and we have vowed to exercise financial discipline. With distorted wit fully engaged, Lanny suggested that we eat dried peas for breakfast, drink water for lunch, and then let them swell up and burst for supper. That would never work---Water gives me indigestion. According to Dave Ramsey, when we get our paychecks, we must set aside enough to cover our weekly expenses ($5,022.23), right off the bat. Mr. Ramsey said that if our combined weekly paychecks total less than this amount, we should go back and marry a rich person. There's one thing for sure, though---Lanny and I aren't going to try to keep up with the Joneses; we're going to drag them down.
It's cheaper.