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.