You, Brick, are a JERK!

Since we're giving away one free Financial Peace University Kit tomorrow I thought I'd share one of the lessons from FPU that really struck a cord with me. Almost all of the lessons strike a cord with me, over and over and over again, but this one did a lot to change my perspective on wealth.

The lesson was about bricks. Okay, really it was about money but Ramsey used a brick as an example.

See, growing up, I was one of those people that bought into the lie of the "Evil Rich People." I thought that every single rich person was evil and therefore I needed to avoid becoming rich at all costs. In fact, being in debt to gazillions of furniture stores, student loan companies and car dealerships sat better in my spirit than the idea of being rich.

It was so bad that when our neighbor said "You need to listen to this guy" (referring to Dave Ramsey) after hearing me lament about our money troubles, I let the borrowed FPU kit sit unopened in our closet for months simply because it had the words "wealth building" plastered across the front.

What kind of ridiculous nonsense did she want me to be a part of? How dare she try to push me to become one of those evil old rich people?

After a while though, we finally got desperate enough to give it a shot and a year later we re-borrowed the kit for a couple of months before joining a Financial Peace Class sponsored by the Army and receiving our own kit for free (thank you taxpayers!!)

Then I heard the brick lesson and I realized how wrong I was about my "evil rich people" theory.

See, Dave says that money is like a brick. I can take a brick and do something evil with it like throwing it through a window. OR I can take that same brick and build a hospital, or a school, or a church.



The brick isn't a jerk, the brick is a-moral. I am not evil if I have bricks and I'm not good if I don't. It's what I DO with my bricks that displays my character, and the type of person I am. There are good rich people and good poor people, and there are evil rich people and there are evil poor people. It's not the money that makes the person evil or good.

You know the best part about the whole deal? Now that we're financial free and have a few more "bricks" we're finding out more and more how fun and exciting it is to give away our bricks. It's also fun to watch them grow into more "bricks" in our investments so that hopefully someday we really can build a hospital, or a school. One of our favorite things to do is to talk about what we will do with our money in retirement, the ways that we'll be able to help people. We would love to pay off mortgages, build homes, fund school programs (like Financial Peace school edition) and more. It's so much fun to dream together, and to know that now, with the track that we're on, there's a good chance that many of those dreams may come true.


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Don't forget that today is the last day to register for the Financial Peace University drawing tomorrow! Also, there is a good chance that we will do this once every other month or once a month since we've gotten so much interest in it! So even if you're not a winner this time you could be next month! Keep checking back and good luck tomorrow!