This last Saturday marked week 2 of the 9 week journey for those going through FPU at our church. I’m at one of the locations that has a pretty small class with about 6 participants each week. Personally, I kind of like this because everyone gets more of a chance to talk and share their story.

Week 2 of Financial Peace University is all about relating to money.  The lesson covers everyone: married, singles, and kids.

For the married folk, it’s obvious that opposites attract. In most relationships there is a saver and spender, and there is a nerd and a free spirit. The nerd is the one who is all excited about doing the budget, and the free spirit is the one who plans on doing their own thing. In our house, I’m definitely the nerd/spender and my wife is more the free spirit/saver. It seems like an odd combination, but it can happen. I like to do all the budgeting stuff, and I think my wife just enjoys the security of knowing that we have a plan and that because of the budget, we’ll be saving money.

For those who are single, doing the stuff in FPU presents a new set of challenges. They don’t have anyone to keep them accountable. So the most important thing for them is to find an accountability partner. They need someone who they will listen to and who isn’t afraid to tell them, “you shouldn’t be buying that” when they need to.

Finally, there are the kids. For the first time in FPU, Dave had his daughter, Rachel Cruze, present this portion of the lesson. There were several takeaways from this section. First, put your kids on commission instead of allowance. You can create a chart with chores they can do and the dollar amount associated with them. Second, when they get a bit older, you can give them a portion of the money that you would otherwise be spending on them. With it, have them open a checking account and then they can buy clothes or pay to go to the movies out of that account. Finally, let them learn some lessons. If they go to the store and don’t have enough money for what they’re looking, tough luck.

If I remember correctly, next week will be all about cash flow planning (which is just a fancy term for budgeting). I hope these updates have been helpful and will hopefully encourage you to investigate taking the course near you.

Featured Image courtesy of Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net