Financial Peace University
Financial Peace University is a Biblically-based, practical study about personal finance. Believe it or not, the materials are fairly easy to understand and entertaining, yet still very informative. Each week we watch a DVD lesson (approximately 60 minutes long) and have group discussion (approximately 60 minutes) about the topics we're studying. The topics include:
- Communicating with your spouse about money
- Teaching your kids about money
- Saving
- Budgeting (don't cringe, it's not as bad as you might think)
- Debt management
- Investing
- Insurance
- Real estate (buying, selling)
- Credit bureaus and credit scores
- Careers
- Giving
- and more
All with a Biblical-based approach (i.e. this is not a Bible study, but it is in line with Scripture and discusses what Scripture says as it relates to the topics) without being “preachy”. Since the Bible has over 800 verses about money, it's not out of bounds at all to talk about a Biblical outlook on money.
FPU Logistics
The class is 13 weeks long. If you miss a class or two you're not eliminated from participating in other classes. You'll just miss out on that topic and some of the building effect you get from reinforcement of the topics each week.
The materials do cost approximately $100 per family. That gets you a lifetime family membership to the class. You can go again as many times as you want, anywhere it's offered. The materials include a workbook, audio CDs of the lessons, the book "Financial Peace", and some other goodies.
The class is led by Chris and Jenny Meadows.
Contact Information
Contact Chris Meadows for more information.
A word from Chris:
I can very honestly say that FPU has made a huge impact on Jenny's and my marriage and financial state. When we got married I came with a pretty significant debt load and she had some too. We had similar views on how to handle money, but found that no matter how we tried, we really weren't communicating well about it. Talking about money anywhere near bed time was strictly taboo since it always left one or both of us in a bad mood.
We decided to go to one of Dave Ramsey's speaking events to see if we could get a few pointers. At the event we were convinced that FPU would be a good thing for us and decided that, since there wasn't one in our area, we should lead a class. That evening we already found significant improvements in our ability to communicate about money just by the tidbits that we picked up in a 4 hour lecture. During the class we saw huge improvements in our own situation (communication, togetherness, and pure numbers) and also big improvements in the lives of people in the class.
Since then we've led a total of 7 or 8 classes (I've lost track) and always see people's lives positively impacted if they're ready to give it a try (and are willing to change - even just a little). It's not uncommon at all to get comments like: "We feel like we got a raise," "We are able to talk about this [money] without fighting now," and "We are working together now." We so firmly believe in the positive impact that FPU has on people's lives and marriages that we are willing to volunteer our time for every class that we lead (that's an indirect way of answering anyone's question of, "Are they promoting this because they make money off of it?" :) ).