Yep, I have read and listened to some of your Cd's on Financial peace. I have been working on implementing some of the steps. Not an easy thing to do for someone who is a procrastinator and who finds the actual paying of bills and contacting debtors to be a painful ordeal. I am not making as much progress as I would like....but I haven't given up.
So what the heck do you have to do with this mess that so many of us are in? I think that you could help inmates and their families work on a plan to help them find financial peace even though they are incarcerated. Now it's just my guess, but if other families are like ours at all. Their knowledge about financial peace may be very small. I know my husbands philosophy has always been, "bills will always be here, so enjoy life and don't worry about the bills. In order to build credit, you need a credit card." I am sure you can only imagine where such beliefs has taken us. To say we disagree about money would be an understatement. Before he was captured, he told me he was trying to start saving money and using a type of envelope/budgeting plan.
Now that my husband is back in jail, financially things will probably go from bad to worse for us in terms of finances. At least before he was capable of sending us some money on occasion, now I have to make the decision on whether or not to send him money, and how much money to spend on collect calls. I have to increase my sources of revenue in order to be able to do this.
Because I have been loyal to someone in jail and bore the financial burden for so many years and we have made some poor financial decisions in the past, I am in a very deep financial hole. I would like to stop digging and climb out of the hole, but I think I need someone to take away my shovel. The thing is Mr. Ramsey, I am sure that I am not the only one in this situation. I am sure that many others who have a loved one locked up, feel ongoing sting on financial burden as well, especially because incarceration can be a revolving door. The financial burden that accompanies incarceration to me feels like a financial rape by our system.
I understand its not the governments fault that someone screwed up and now is in jail. That's on them. I understand that there needs to be punishment, but on the other end...it's the family who is paying the price. Maybe the government could pay the inmates who work a fair working wage instead of slave labor and apply the monies earned to an account that could be used to pay for phone calls, commissary, money for their families, money for their fines and other expenditures. Maybe there ought to be a minimum wage for inmates. I know you can't personally make the government increase the wages for prisoners, but maybe you could implement a finical peace university lecture that is tailored to those who are incarcerated. Perhaps if families and inmates attended these lectures, they could make changes that will build a bedrock of security instead of continuing to dig themselves holes like we have done. Perhaps with these lectures families would learn about financial boundaries to set while they love someone who is incarcerated and perhaps their loved one would support them in that boundary knowing that it will help them later on in the course of their life.
Do you have any idea of how hard it is for anyone who has been in jail to start over when they leave? It is expensive to say the least....how can we help families like mine prepare for expenses so when that day comes they are not left floundering and sinking into despair?
How can we come up with employment solutions as well? It is difficult if not almost impossible to get a job when you have been incarcerated or have a rap sheet. This means that many people who were imprisoned are "self employed." That's great...but if you are like my husband and myself, you don't have the skills or knowledge to run a successful business. He made money occasionally doing construction work, but it was never enough to really support us or help out very much.
He often wouldn't get paid and had no recourse because everything was done "under the table". It's not like he could charge full price for his labor or that he could complain to anyone but me when money fell through.
When I asked him to move out of our house two years ago, I told him, before you can move back home, you have to learn how to be financially independent. You have to be able to help us financially rather than be a burden. I would really like to see this happen still.
Financial woes have taken a huge toll on our relationship. Like many, it was one of the things we argued about or I just refused to talk about it because it caused me so much anxiety and pain. If families who haven't gone through the agony of incarceration fall apart because of finances, imagine for a moment just how much more difficult that it is for the families to stay together during this time. There but by the Grace of God, go we. How we have lasted this long is beyond me.
So again just to sum it up, what I think would totally rock is a financial peace university program tailored to those who are incarcerated with the goals of helping them make better financial decisions in the long run. Do you think you would be able to help us? Pretty please?
So what the heck do you have to do with this mess that so many of us are in? I think that you could help inmates and their families work on a plan to help them find financial peace even though they are incarcerated. Now it's just my guess, but if other families are like ours at all. Their knowledge about financial peace may be very small. I know my husbands philosophy has always been, "bills will always be here, so enjoy life and don't worry about the bills. In order to build credit, you need a credit card." I am sure you can only imagine where such beliefs has taken us. To say we disagree about money would be an understatement. Before he was captured, he told me he was trying to start saving money and using a type of envelope/budgeting plan.
Now that my husband is back in jail, financially things will probably go from bad to worse for us in terms of finances. At least before he was capable of sending us some money on occasion, now I have to make the decision on whether or not to send him money, and how much money to spend on collect calls. I have to increase my sources of revenue in order to be able to do this.
Because I have been loyal to someone in jail and bore the financial burden for so many years and we have made some poor financial decisions in the past, I am in a very deep financial hole. I would like to stop digging and climb out of the hole, but I think I need someone to take away my shovel. The thing is Mr. Ramsey, I am sure that I am not the only one in this situation. I am sure that many others who have a loved one locked up, feel ongoing sting on financial burden as well, especially because incarceration can be a revolving door. The financial burden that accompanies incarceration to me feels like a financial rape by our system.
I understand its not the governments fault that someone screwed up and now is in jail. That's on them. I understand that there needs to be punishment, but on the other end...it's the family who is paying the price. Maybe the government could pay the inmates who work a fair working wage instead of slave labor and apply the monies earned to an account that could be used to pay for phone calls, commissary, money for their families, money for their fines and other expenditures. Maybe there ought to be a minimum wage for inmates. I know you can't personally make the government increase the wages for prisoners, but maybe you could implement a finical peace university lecture that is tailored to those who are incarcerated. Perhaps if families and inmates attended these lectures, they could make changes that will build a bedrock of security instead of continuing to dig themselves holes like we have done. Perhaps with these lectures families would learn about financial boundaries to set while they love someone who is incarcerated and perhaps their loved one would support them in that boundary knowing that it will help them later on in the course of their life.
Do you have any idea of how hard it is for anyone who has been in jail to start over when they leave? It is expensive to say the least....how can we help families like mine prepare for expenses so when that day comes they are not left floundering and sinking into despair?
How can we come up with employment solutions as well? It is difficult if not almost impossible to get a job when you have been incarcerated or have a rap sheet. This means that many people who were imprisoned are "self employed." That's great...but if you are like my husband and myself, you don't have the skills or knowledge to run a successful business. He made money occasionally doing construction work, but it was never enough to really support us or help out very much.
He often wouldn't get paid and had no recourse because everything was done "under the table". It's not like he could charge full price for his labor or that he could complain to anyone but me when money fell through.
When I asked him to move out of our house two years ago, I told him, before you can move back home, you have to learn how to be financially independent. You have to be able to help us financially rather than be a burden. I would really like to see this happen still.
Financial woes have taken a huge toll on our relationship. Like many, it was one of the things we argued about or I just refused to talk about it because it caused me so much anxiety and pain. If families who haven't gone through the agony of incarceration fall apart because of finances, imagine for a moment just how much more difficult that it is for the families to stay together during this time. There but by the Grace of God, go we. How we have lasted this long is beyond me.
So again just to sum it up, what I think would totally rock is a financial peace university program tailored to those who are incarcerated with the goals of helping them make better financial decisions in the long run. Do you think you would be able to help us? Pretty please?
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