Tonight we had our first meeting with our Love INC (www.loveinctv.org) Counselor. His name is Rod and he seems like a good fit for us.

Just to give some background, the reason we're going through the New Hope Relational program is because we have some issues with managing our finances. We have a little debt (besides our house), but that's not the main reason. We just want to learn to budget better so that we can be good stewards of the money and resources that God entrusts to us.

We've been in the program about 7 weeks now. The first 6 weeks we took classes that taught us why budgeting is important, how to budget, about debt, etc. We were also given assignments including tracking all of our expenses in a little notebook, then compiling those into a monthly worksheet, and then we filled out a debt worksheet, a budget, and after that we learned how to use a check register. For some people this stuff is a no-brainer, but for us, it took some learning. All these steps were to prepare us for the next step.

Now to tonight ... we met with our counselor. Love INC has already taken our credit and debit cards and tonight they took our checkbook. Each week, on Thursday, we will go in, look at the upcoming week and write checks for our bills as well as a check to ourselved which we'll cash and use for groceries, gas, etc. It has been eye-opening for us to look at a calendar, decide what's due and when, and plan ahead for expenses. It's actually quite freeing.

I'm looking forward to working with Katrina on being consistent about writing things down and balancing our check book. In a way, it's fun, albeit time-consuming. Until next time,

Lance