Tuesday, February 17, 2009

FPU update

Well, we are leading Financial Peace University again.  This will be the 3rd year we have lead it so far.  Each year we are averaging about 28 families. This year (like last year) we are split up into two classes, a Sunday night and a Wednesday night.  I have some wonderful people helping me lead the classes: Richard Raue, Tracie and Jared Rugg, Becky and Todd Clark, Jennifer Carter, and my brother Chuck and Mary Katherine.  

Every year on the third week of the class we pass out note cards and ask everyone to (anonymously) put how much debt they have NOT including mortgage debt. So credit cards, car loans, student loans, and the like... Every time we do this I find myself getting emotional and I am reminded why I am doing this.  Out of the Sunday night class we had 15 families(of 18 total) turn in a card with their number on it and our Sunday night was: $444,878.45.  Now I know a number of you math geeks are probably dividing and doing the average right now, but that really doesn't give a good picture of the situtation.  There were basically 4 categories of numbers turned in.  A few people had written down a proud ZERO, another group wrote numbers between $4,000 - $8,000, then the next group was in the $35,000 to $45,000, then there was the last group that turned in the big numbers.  Knowing that 15 families combined are only $66,000 short of half a million dollars in debt is my big reminder why I get so passionate about helping people learn to take care of their money.  
The other thing I am excited about is the number of young people that are taking the class this year. I love the idea that I might be helping someone younger avoid some financial mistakes and pitfalls. 

2 comments:

Melissa Mae said...

I have been thinking about you guys because Ben is leading FPU right now too. I remembered that you weere leading it before. This Sunday will be our third meeting. I should suggest that he ask them to the do the notecard thing too. That huge number is incredible, though. It makes me wonder how weighted down I would feel....

Anonymous said...

Great ministry. Keep it up. The church should take this seriously and focus on this more. Just another area where the church should stand out from the culture and instead reflects the culture. And this is my confession because we are not debt free either.