So it's been an exhausting day. I'm surprised I haven't already gone to bed. I needed to get the good ole' work out in and I couldn't get something off my mind so I thought I'd blog a little before I hit the hay. My car has been out of commission (and transmission) for the last three weeks. We've been down to one car and it hasn't been fun. I'll save you the details but we we were waiting for our tax refund check to pay for the work. We finally got the check and as soon as I received it I called the mechanic to give him the green light to fix the car. He called me yesterday and told me that the car would be done today and we could pick it up in the afternoon. The bad news came around 11AM today. I knew the news was going to be bad as soon as I realized he left a message without my phone ringing and then I couldn't get to my voicemail. I should have stopped and prayed then but I proceeded on. I finally got the message and he explained to me (long story short) that we have blew up the engine and instead of the $1000 that we were thinking we would have to pay it was going to be $4000-$5000. My heart sank. That was practically the rest of our refund check that was left over. What were we going to do? I couldn't even wrap my head around the thought of not going on our anniversary vacation in November. What about the money we were going to build back up our savings? Gone...that was the only thing that kept coming to mind...Gone. The only thing that Nate said was that he was glad we had the money to pay for the repair. What? What about the other stuff. I couldn't get past it. I made numerous calls, talked to all kinds of people, I was in a rut all day. It was awful. I talked to my parents and they advised me but the news was bad no matter how you looked at it. It was 4PM when a friend walked in my office and asked why I wasn't running it thru insurance. HELLO...wake up call! Why weren't we again? It originally started out that we didn't want Nate to have this on his record so we were just going to pay the $1000 out of pocket since the accident was his fault. It didn't even cross my mind to put it thru insurance with the price going so high. I called my insurance guy (who is amazing) and he told me we can certainly do this plus he told me that our deductible had decreased. Not only are we not going to have to loose all of our tax refund check but we only have to pay our $500 for the work. What a relief. What did I learn? I still have a problem with worry and trust. I feel like I can do things on my own and when I learn that things aren't going my way I worry about what's going to happen. This little interruption rocked my world today and it shouldn't have. It says in Matthew DO NOT worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of it's own. Today I had trouble alright but I also have a great big God. He knows what my tomorrow is going to bring. He knows my desires, my needs, my shortcomings, everything. Pride is something else that got in the way. I didn't want to tell anyone at work about my bad news and it took my friend overhearing a conversation to figure out I was in trouble. If I would have gone to her sooner I might not have gone thru the valley for that short time. This was certainly a test and I didn't do so well. Hopefully next time I have an interruption I'll take time. That's just it...take time. Be quiet. It's so not in my nature to take time but that's where I get caught up. Lesson learned for today...take a timeout.
Showing posts with label Finances. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Finances. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Timeout
So it's been an exhausting day. I'm surprised I haven't already gone to bed. I needed to get the good ole' work out in and I couldn't get something off my mind so I thought I'd blog a little before I hit the hay. My car has been out of commission (and transmission) for the last three weeks. We've been down to one car and it hasn't been fun. I'll save you the details but we we were waiting for our tax refund check to pay for the work. We finally got the check and as soon as I received it I called the mechanic to give him the green light to fix the car. He called me yesterday and told me that the car would be done today and we could pick it up in the afternoon. The bad news came around 11AM today. I knew the news was going to be bad as soon as I realized he left a message without my phone ringing and then I couldn't get to my voicemail. I should have stopped and prayed then but I proceeded on. I finally got the message and he explained to me (long story short) that we have blew up the engine and instead of the $1000 that we were thinking we would have to pay it was going to be $4000-$5000. My heart sank. That was practically the rest of our refund check that was left over. What were we going to do? I couldn't even wrap my head around the thought of not going on our anniversary vacation in November. What about the money we were going to build back up our savings? Gone...that was the only thing that kept coming to mind...Gone. The only thing that Nate said was that he was glad we had the money to pay for the repair. What? What about the other stuff. I couldn't get past it. I made numerous calls, talked to all kinds of people, I was in a rut all day. It was awful. I talked to my parents and they advised me but the news was bad no matter how you looked at it. It was 4PM when a friend walked in my office and asked why I wasn't running it thru insurance. HELLO...wake up call! Why weren't we again? It originally started out that we didn't want Nate to have this on his record so we were just going to pay the $1000 out of pocket since the accident was his fault. It didn't even cross my mind to put it thru insurance with the price going so high. I called my insurance guy (who is amazing) and he told me we can certainly do this plus he told me that our deductible had decreased. Not only are we not going to have to loose all of our tax refund check but we only have to pay our $500 for the work. What a relief. What did I learn? I still have a problem with worry and trust. I feel like I can do things on my own and when I learn that things aren't going my way I worry about what's going to happen. This little interruption rocked my world today and it shouldn't have. It says in Matthew DO NOT worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of it's own. Today I had trouble alright but I also have a great big God. He knows what my tomorrow is going to bring. He knows my desires, my needs, my shortcomings, everything. Pride is something else that got in the way. I didn't want to tell anyone at work about my bad news and it took my friend overhearing a conversation to figure out I was in trouble. If I would have gone to her sooner I might not have gone thru the valley for that short time. This was certainly a test and I didn't do so well. Hopefully next time I have an interruption I'll take time. That's just it...take time. Be quiet. It's so not in my nature to take time but that's where I get caught up. Lesson learned for today...take a timeout.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Stockpiling
Again, another one of the blogs that I follow had a good post about stockpiling. I've been doing my fair share of this the past couple weeks and I love it. I've been getting a ton of free stuff and it has made life so much easier. We're getting to the point where we can give away stuff now and that make both Nate and I happy that we can help others. Nate has really gotten into it too...he loves to see what I've gotten and guesses how much I've spent. He always guesses way more than what I've spent and when I tell him the final price he loves me all the more! You have to take a look. You can read the whole article here. Thanks "Life as Mom" for the great info!
Friday, June 4, 2010
Debt
I just read an amazing article on debt by one of my favorite fellow bloggers. You have got to take a look at this. Click here to get to it. She talks about taking extreme measures to stay out of debt. her family did it while her husband was in law school and they lived on around $12,000 for the year. She gives 28 ways that helped them stay out of debt and get by. Very inspiring! Hope it touches you as much as it touched me. Thanks Money Saving Mom for sharing!
Friday, February 12, 2010
Debt
For the past few years we've been trying our hardest to get out of debt and start saving. We've been (not faithfully) following Dave Ramsey's plan for Total Money Makeover. Actually we've been doing his plan completely out of order but we have made a lot of progress. If we were to do it over again, it's definitely worth going in his order! I think I did this at the beginning of 2009 so here's our update for 2010:Baby Step #1 - Save $1000 in an emergency savings plan
DONE
Baby Step #2 - Get out of debt with the debt snowball
ALMOST DONE $5,000 more on our car payment (should be paid off in June/July)
Baby Step #3 - Start saving 3-6 months of expenses in savings
STARTING IN AUGUST
Baby Step #4 - Invest 15% in a Roth IRA
CURRENTLY DOING 12% IN MY ROTH
Baby Step #5 - Future funding for kids
SAVING $100 PER CHILD PER MONTH
Baby Step #6 - Pay off home early
Baby Step #7 - Build wealth & give
So as you can see, we're all over the board! Each part is equally important and we felt that they all deserve attention! Once June & July get here, we feel our baby steps will start picking up. It's been fun to see our money working for us though instead of us working for our money. If you get a chance, read the book "Total Monday Makeover" by Dave Ramsey. I like this one better than "Financial Peace University" but it's your call. Both have really good info about debt, saving, and not being in bondage by money problems. Check it out!
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