They say that memory is activated by deep emotion. If you're extremely angry or afraid, you have a clear lock on that memory. I have a clear lock on a memory from 35 years ago. I remember exactly where I was in the grocery store. I could take you there right now and I could show you the register. As I’m writing a check for food for my wife and little kids, I didn’t know if there was enough money in the account. And I didn’t know if I was spending money that I was going to need for bills when I got home. Was I trading this bag of groceries for my electricity getting cut off? It wasn't a panic attack… I guess today you might call it that, I don't know… I just became overwhelmed with this feeling of how stupid I was and this level of terror. This constant knot in my stomach about how I can't even buy food for my kids. It was at that moment when I finally thought, This isn't working. And that’s the last time I ever had that feeling. And so I went home, got a yellow pad out, and wrote down the money we had coming in that month. Then I wrote out what I needed to spend, and I gave every dollar an assignment. We're Christians, so we're going to tithe to our church, so generosity was first. Then we’re buying food, we're paying the electric bill, we're not doing all this other crap and we're not going out to eat until we've covered these basic needs, and so on. And we started living that way, and we've not had a single month of our lives that we don't have a plan for every dollar. Because it just gives us such peace—and that chaos is totally gone. That’s why we named our app EveryDollar, and I hope it’s helping you find this same result where you don’t have this overwhelming fear like I used to have. Organization and planning has brought us so much peace, and I know it sounds nerdy, but it really happens that way. You’ll feel like you got a raise.

If you want a marriage that lasts, agree on these four things before you walk down the aisle: 1. How you’ll handle money: budgeting, debt, saving, investing, etc. 2. Your faith and how you’ll live it out together. 3. Kids: if you’ll have them, how many, and how you’ll raise them. 4. How you’ll deal with extended family. Get on the same page now, and you’ll save yourselves years of heartache later.