Take Care of Your 4 Walls

If you have listened to Dave Ramsey for any amount of time, you have heard about the 4 walls.  He recommends you take care of your 4 walls before anything else - always making sure you have your 4 walls!  What are the 4 walls?

1. Food 
2. Shelter
3. Transportation
4. Clothing

I had always put food and clothing on the back burner in place of other things because those were usually the areas that we could save in.  However, after listening to people's stories and those who didn't tend to these things FIRST, I have changed my thoughts on it.  I wanted to go into detail about each to help you all in case you haven't heard of this before.


1.  Food - this includes enough food for your entire family to live on each month.  I believe it also includes things like toilet paper, soap, etc.  The basics - not extras or luxuries.

2.  Shelter - this includes your housing and utilities.   If you have a mortgage, it also includes your property taxes and homeowner's insurance.  If you don't own a home, it includes rent and renter's insurance.  Then, it also includes electric/gas, water/sewer and garbage and non-luxury phone.

3.  Transportation - This is includes gas, car insurance and maintenance of your vehicle.

4.  Clothing - includes basic clothing needs, such as: clothing, shoes, socks, etc.


Dave Ramsey says to make sure you the 4 walls are funded and paid BEFORE paying anything else, such as credit cards or other debts or non-basic expenses.

Just Making It Budget for Family of 4

Times are getting hard for a lot of "former" middle class families, now considered lower class, despite the economy going so well.  I've been reading it and hearing it in various places.  I'm talking about families that are living on one income already without luxuries.  Incomes aren't going up for a lot, though the prices of everything is, especially health care.

I decided to do a no-frills, no government assistance, just-make-it budget for a typical family of 4 on one income to see just what the base salary needs to be.  This family has no debt but the mortgage possibly.  They also have no life insurance, though some say you can get it for $10 a month, which could be easily added in.  

Tithe - $260
Offerings - $50
Housing (rent or mortgage/prop taxes/HO insurance) - $1000
Car Maintenance/Repair Fund - $90
Car Insurance - $50
Gasoline - $150
Home phone - FREE (Google Voice with Obihai)
Cell phone - $25 (Google Project Fi)
Additional Cell phone line - $15
Electric/Gas - $175
Water/Sewer - $30
Garbage - $30
Internet - $50
Food - $350
Necessity items - $50
Clothing - $30

Total:  $2,355/mo - Higher to cover taxes, so $15 an hour needed; $31,200/yr, $2,600/mo

A good wage for a family really needs to be at $15 an hour and no less to just live.  I didn't include health insurance because a lot are already going without.  Families that live at this level, would need to get government assistance for medical if they want to be covered, as it has become too outrageous for almost anyone to afford.

This budget includes no entertainment/fun money, eating out or other things that most of us do.  I suppose you could find a very cheap place to live to lower the housing and provide extra money that way but the norm around the US is about $1K for something decent - whether that is mortgage/taxes/insurance for a home or rent costs.

After seeing this written out, you can see what a lot of people are facing right now.  There are those that will cut out the tithe/offering but they will soon find out that you can't rob God and expect good things to come!  God has never failed in the 19 years I've paid tithe and offerings and never withheld!  It is HIS money to begin with - he lets you have 90%, please don't think your thoughts are higher than what God has established with our finances.