Money is incredibly important. It has the ability to impact many areas of my life. Yet, I clearly understand that money will not solve all of life's problems. Friends will still get sick. Loved ones will still pass on. Friendships can get complicated. Misunderstandings will happen.

Sound money management will not solve all of life's problems, BUT it can really reduce them.

I have found that the lack of money has caused simple problems to become HUGE interruptions to my life. When I was broke, a car repair had the ability to completely derail the family finances. When I was mismanaging all of our money, a sickness would crush the family economy and introduce a pile of stress into my life.

On the other hand, I have found that having money has enabled me to help others in times of need. I have found that having money has reduced a transmission failure into a mere nuisance. I have found that it has removed a lot of fierce discussions between Jenn and me. We now just fiercely debate really cool topics like house projects!

Sound money management has not solved all of my life's problems, but it has really made me aware of just how blessed I am! I am NEVER going back to my old way of mismanaging money and running with an average bank balance of $4.13!

NEVER.