Finding Financial Peace

What is financial peace? I used to equate it with more money. Boy was I wrong!

We were paying off everything but the house when Vania came into the world. Vania's first formula came from samples the hospital provided. They were those little 1 or 2 ounce pre-mixed bottles of formula. Vania drank the bottle down, and two minutes later spit all of it right back up. So we decided to try another brand.

A new brand gave us the same result. On to soy based formula then. That worked for about a week. Vania still spit up as much as she drank down. My wife moved to a hypo-allergenic formula. That worked well. As a test, we moved Vania back to soy - maybe the dairy had a lingering effect. Nope, less than a week and she spit up the soy too. Hypo-allergenic it was.

Vania was born October 29. It was mid-December by the time we had this sorted out. January's budget was the first accounting for the new feeding regimen. Most parents know that you can buy five pound cans of formula for around $15. One or two cans a month only hits your budget for $30 - not a big dent to the groceries.

The hypo-allergenic formula comes in 1 pound cans. Those cost $27 a can. At eight to ten pounds a month, we were looking at $270. One-fifth of our family (the baby) took one-third of the grocery budget. That's a significant dent.

So I sat down, preparing my emotions for the worst. Down through each category - $270 for the baby's food, gas, electricity, our food, etc. Dropped the remaining debts to minimum, and it balanced! The three debts we paid off that year came to $270 a month. In that moment, I felt like we were winning with money.

Financial peace didn't come from having an insane over abundance of cash. It came from taking control of the cash God did provide. And seeing that when we obey Him, God meets every need. Vania has been a great blessing in our lives. God ensures that we do enjoy her, without financial stress taking anything away. That is financial peace.

We paid off those debts following the Baby Steps taught in Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. Proverbs 15:4a says...

The tongue that brings healing is a tree of life.

In our case, this was literal.