Phase One 2016

Originally we had hoped that we would reach our phase one goal by April of this year because that would be one full year of our journey. When we broke down our debt we did it the way Dave tells you to, smallest to largest bill. Pay off the little ones because it gives you momentum for your next bill to be paid off. We had to spend about three months playing catch up, because that is how far behind we were in the beginning. After getting our feet on the ground, we made some head way for another month or so before we had another bump in the road, that being me quitting my job. So then we spent the next two months scraping by until I found my to new jobs, and I am still waiting to start at my full-time position in April. To make a long story short, we fell off track for phase one.
Our original phase one was to pay off credit cards and small bills. We will not make this goal by April 2016. The new phase one is on track to be completed by the end of the year 12/31/16. Our total for phase one started at $15,425.64. This is a combination of credit cards and medical bills only. We would love to pay this off before December, and anything is possible when you have God on your side. After completing  phase one we will have approximately $600 to apply to phase two. We have a current time line for completing phase two in a year also, but I am very hopeful that we will be able to get this accomplished in 6 months! The reason I say that is because the total for Phase two is already less than phase one, and we are decreasing that amount each month in the process. So I am hopeful that by April 2017 we will have Phase one & two finished. That will be 2 years into our journey, and although I want this mess cleaned up like yesterday, I am learning that this is a process. We made this mess over the past 13 years, and getting it gone is a marathon and not a sprint.

January 2016- New year, same goal.

So we pushed through another month of uncertainty. The fluctuation of income is so extremely stressful for me. I do so much better if I know exact numbers and not estimates. I was hopeful that my full-time position would give me the go ahead and let me start one month early. I will be benefited so much when I can actually start there, our insurance will be very affordable for us then, not to mention a bigger & steady paycheck each month. However, despite my hope in starting on March 1 I will not be able to until April 1. So until then I will hurry up and wait!
I am so tired of hanging on..... I am tired, and feelings of disgust and aggravation have tried their hardest to take over inside of me. Yesterday was the breaking point. Hunter's Jeep has decided to stop working, leaving him without a vehicle. (Sounds like the transmission, although I pray not) I was already worried about finishing out the month just barely getting by, and then that has to happen. We are down to the exact emergency balance that you are suppose to keep in savings too. This will not be enough to cover Hunter's Jeep repair. We are more than over it at this point. I spent the day yesterday so upset and worried. The cold hard truth is this is our fault and that is that. We didn't save cash for our oldest son's car, we bought it through financing. We didn't even have a down payment to put on it. At the time we bought it Brian was managing our money on his own. We discussed getting him a used vehicle, and at the time we thought the monthly payment was doable. Now we will be stuck with the monthly payment and the cost of repairs, because we were DUMB. 
Thankfully, he is able to walk to classes from his dorm. We are brainstorming on where the money to fix it will come from. Another lesson learned, pay cash for a car, and budget for maintenance and repairs on your vehicles, never know when things will blow-up.
This month our Sunday sermons have been on giving, being generous and trusting the Lord with all of our stuff. I found myself thinking about the amount of money we have been tithing each month and although we have made some changes it is still not where we need to be. We discussed this on our way home from church this morning, and when I asked Brian his take on it he just said "I know we should and I want to but the thought of it scares me" he was honest and for that I am glad. We will be praying about this, and when I sat down and looked things over this month for the budget it doesn't look possible until I start my new job and have the means to do it. My heart is there, I just need the money to do it with. This is so hard, because I know that had we not made so many normal, dumb mistakes we wouldn't be where we are today. When Brian and I first got married we tithed our 10% faithfully every month. Ironically when we bought our second home, that all changed. That's probably why things have not worked out so well for us!!
We didn't really meet any financial goals for this month, just barely scraping by. I did start one of my new jobs, and so far so good. I really think I will love it (once I figure out what I'm doing).
This was also the first Valentines' Day that I didn't buy the kids or Brian anything. But they will survive I suppose.

Summary; We did manage to have a manageable income for the month. I started one of my new jobs. We still have the emergency fund, although it's not at the amount it was. We were in a position to help out one of my family members in a bad situation.
Downside; We used some money from savings, we made more money than projected, so that means we blew our budget. We didn't stick to our food budget, and we ended up eating out to much. Due to the weather I missed two days of work.

Goals for next month; Increase our savings. Go to the store and stick to our grocery budget. Get Hunter's vehicle fixed and recoup from the extra expense.

Christmas Time 2015

So sad to say, but December has always been a stressful time for me. As a child of God I know the true meaning of Christmas all to well, but this world sure does make it hard to make it through this season without worry. And yes I know that scripture tells us to worry about nothing and pray about everything, so this year I applied that to me life literally..... I prayed that I wouldn't worry. I worry about things that I'm sure many of you all do as well, bills, buying gifts for others, all the extra stuff that shows up like dirty Santa games, gifts for teachers, party supplies, Christmas dinner and many more behind the scene things. I try to be a rational person, so I really shouldn't worry about things that aren't that important to me, but I still do! I want to do Christmas simple..... Get our children gifts and spend time with our families and that's it, accomplishing that is still a challenge to me every year. I'm writing this now in January so clearly we survived. But that's just it, I survived, I don't just want to survive I want to thrive through Christmas. Make it what it really is..... The most wonderful time of the year, the birth of our Lord and Savior. So now it's time to talk about the budget for December.
Going into this I am still working at two part-time jobs, which have no benefits. Brian is working at his full-time job as well as working at his part-time job as well. Working extra in December was very challenging because we had all the "extra things" to attend. Christmas play practice, holiday parties at work, Nutcracker play practice, Cheer stuff, haven and Hunter both had birthdays and on and on it goes. So where we are used to working 5-6 days a week that was cut very short. Some weeks I only worked 2 days*** that really stinks your paycheck up! But like I said, we survived.
We were able to make it through the month, because we saved for the storm. According to Dave Ramsey, you need $1000.00 in the emergency fund, we have found that for us we save a little more than that for an emergency within the emergency! It depends on your family's situation, we knew back in October that the next few months could be hard on us so we stored up. When I left my previous job, we knew that it could take me a little while to find something else and get started. So I would just say that do whatever is best for your family in your situation.

Brian and I started participating in Christmas Club saving about five years ago, and this has made a huge change in how we buy at Christmas. Before we had the idea that we would put money back a little at a time and well that was never the case, because we didn't have any extra money to put back. Then we headed into the Holiday season with no money, which meant we either put it on a credit card, or we used bill money to buy Christmas. Just saying that out loud is embarrassing! Oh the dumb things we used to do......
So here's the nitty gritty;

• We closed out the month with the lowest monthly bring home pay since starting back in May.
• We still managed to pay all the bills on time, and cash flow Christmas
• We ended the month with a $55.00 decrease in our savings
• The most important part, I ended the month with 2 new jobs. One is Full-time with great compensation and full benefits, the other is part time and less than 10 minutes away from home.
• We were also still able to continue tithing even though we were down in our income.
• We didn't pay off any extra debts, but I am still okay with that given our situation.

Goals for January;

• Maintain.... This is key, because I don't start me new jobs until February, and April
• Keep a positive attitude despite my frustration with a smaller income for the next month or so.

Goals for 2016;

• Stay the course.... every time I get a little discouraged I look back at where we were and then I can keep focusing on where we are going! 
• Plan to plan our work and work our plan..... we want to reach our debt goal for May, and then celebrate with a vacation this summer.