Toby and I have just completed the 14-week Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University at Ventura Baptist Church. We really benefitted from this class in many ways. We have begun a process of paying off our current debt, avoiding future debt, and saving for the future. Many people helped us, many time, to take this class, most prominent were the people who watched our kids on Sunday nights during the class.
While this class was nominally presented from a Christian world-view, the lessons focused mostly on the philosophy of avoiding debt and saving for the the future. One of the changes in our thought process that is required is delayed gratification. This is very hard in America’s consumer driven culture.
In an effort to speed up our debt payoff, Toby and I have taken second jobs. Our second jobs are hosting foreign exchange students for a local international language school. We are currently hosting a French Canadian student and a Korean student. This winter we have also hosted students from Japan and Holland. Having 2 students is a bit like a second job, as we are expected to provide breakfast and dinner each day (and lunch on the weekends). Toby prepares full dinners each night and I clean up each day. Toby laments the loss of throwing tacquitos and quesadillas at the kids as we rush from baseball to Awana to dance class to Cub Scouts. But the effort is worth it as we work towards financial peace.
For my 38th birthday, Poppa made me a Bacon Explosion: bacon crumbles inside a layer of sausage, rolled up inside a bacon weave, smothered in bar-be-que sauce and smoked to perfection. 
Toby followed up with peanut butter brownies : brownies layered with marshmallow sauce and topped with a chocolate peanut butter, rice krispy concoction,
Goodness.
