For some reason tonight, my mind will not be quiet. I keep thinking about all the things that need to get done. Theresa and I decided to move into a different apartment on campus. While the cost is about the same, the school is paying for both Internet and heating. Removing those two things will cut about $75-$100/month from our budget.
The savings are AWESOME. No complaints there, but being on campus Internet means I lose access to one of the most consistent things in my life for almost five years: World of Warcraft. Yes… I know. It’s a game. Not that big of a deal. And you’re right, in a lot of ways it is just a game; but at the same time there is more to it than that. Whenever I’ve played WoW, I’ve always been able to interact w/ people. Having fun conversations and getting to know them and their lives. I’ve built relationships and have made friends through WoW. How deep those friendships go depends on the friend but there have definitely been several connections made through WoW over the years and it’s going to be hard to lose those. It’s a tough but necessary sacrifice. Besides, there are plenty of other games still out there for me to play like KotOR, KotOR II, Zelda: Twilight Princess, Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy IX, and Final Fantasy VIII just to name a few. I’m sure there’ll be more coming out that I’m gonna wanna play but those should hold me over for the rest of summer I think.
I think this decision has also been prompted by the book I’ve started reading. I picked up Dave Ramsey’s “The Total Money Makeover” awhile ago but never got around to seriously reading it. It took too much time and I was too busy w/ school/work to worry about it. But now that summer’s here and I have a lot of free time on my hands, I decided I needed to get serious about reading it.
I start reading through it this morning and I’ve read through the first three chapters. So far the book is very slow. It’s right now explaining about how I need to make an attitude change and change my belief’s regarding debt. I think Dave’s absolutely right when he says the biggest hurdle to financial freedom is me. I really need to put my big boy pants on and put in the time and effort it takes to start building wealth. Theresa and I can thrive on our incomes, if we manage them well. Most of his points about debt make sense to me. I’ve been trying to avoid going into debt as long as I can but things like school, unfortunately, I haven’t been able to pay for without taking out student loans… C’est la vie.
Hopefully we can get our collective butts in gear and start getting ourselves more financially stable. It’d be really nice to start being able to start putting money away for the future; for things like a house, a new car, baby products, a vacation, etc. This is going to be hard but the motto from the book is really awesome:
IF YOU WILL LIVE LIKE NO ONE ELSE, LATER YOU CAN LIVE LIKE NO ONE ELSE
So here’s to hoping things go well w/ this. I pray that Theresa and I can get our butts in gear and stay in gear and move forward w/ our lives.
) but that is the desire of my heart; to chase after the desires of His heart. I hope I can get there some day. I need to work harder at it. More discipline to keep focused on Him and His desires. More time spent in prayer and in the Word… Lots of changes I need to make in my life. I pray for the discipline to be the disciple I want to be.