Self-Reliance: Finances

Since joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in 2005, I have been impressed by the educational opportunities available for members (and interested non-members). High school students can attend seminary outside of their regular curriculum, institute classes are present on university campuses - I loved our professor, Brother Campbell! - and, most recently in our area, My Path for Self Reliance.

Strung out over a 12-week period, each class is roughly 2 hours long and focuses on one of four topics - finances, starting and growing a business, finding a better job, personal finances, and education for better work. As finances has never been my strong suit, I enrolled in this group mid-November.

Self-reliance, as defined by the Church Handbook:2, is "the ability, commitment, and effort to provide for the spiritual and temporal necessities of life for self and family. As members become self-reliant, they are also better able to serve and care for others." The result is that work is enthroned as a ruling principle in their lives. President Thomas S. Monson taught that "salvation can be obtained on no other principle" (Ensign, Sept. 1986). The curriculum is heavily doctrine based and infused with common sense principles. I loved reading weekly the tidbits from our church leaders and learning from one another. What began as a desire to improve my finance skills and seemed like a major time commitment (perhaps something of a drag every week) morphed into two hours of bonding, learning, feeling the Spirit, and cherished time with new-found friends. We made a commitment at the first class to not judge one another, not to apologize if we had a rough week with our homework, and to laugh. All of those goals were met and then some. 

The class is well outlined in the book we received the first day and discussions were centered around the "financial stewardship success map." 

We made commitments each week - teaching others what we learned, promising to work on daily prayer, serving others, creating a budget, or choosing a hard task and seeing it through to the end. Action partners were chosen weekly. These individuals were paired up to help as an accountability tracker; we were to text or call multiple times each week to see how the homework was going, chat about difficulties living a principle, and creating friendships. The final class had the same page - choose an action partner. While one class member joked that the editor of the book got a little crazy with the "cut and paste" button, five of us promised to stay in touch on a regular basis and continue to help each other through this on-going financial-smarts-learning. We attended the temple together last week and I was filled with the sweetest spirit while sitting with them. 

Financial conversations between Chadwick and I have never been easy and I used to dread them. He's always been the financially savvy one and probably felt like I was dragging us down by my lack of apparent interest. Since participating in the class, I've developed a foundation of knowledge related to money and, more importantly, a desire to actively contribute to our family's financial-well being. I feel like our conversations are more about conversing and less about one-sided discussions, I'm actively thinking before spending (though there's still room for improvement with regards to the use of my debit card), and feel better equipped to create a budget. 

I'm grateful for the inspiration of the church leaders in creating this class and others like it. I'm grateful for the materials provided, for the time to learn and grow with new people, and the friendships created. I'm grateful for the increased financial harmony in my marriage.

Now I have the tools to move forward and be a responsible adult. At least most of the time. =)