We're Getting PUMPED!!

Our budget is finally about to pack on some serious muscle in this war we've waged on our debt!

The Lord is aligning a number of things at JUST the right time as far as our finances are concerned. My wife just got a DREAM of a part-time job. (Ka-ching $$) My job just assigned me to a large overtime project. (KA-ching $$$) And largest of all in the next few days we'll be paying off a major loan that will push an extra 5 'bills' ($500) straight to our debt snowball! (KA-CHINGY ching chang $$$$!!) LOL

Now usually our budget meetings have become pretty fluid and pain-free, but last night took it to a whole new level. We were actually GIDDY talking about out finances! We were joking around and giving each other funny lil nicknames. For instance, because I'm the one that actually plots out our budget spreadsheet, and withdraws the cash ect. I made a joke that she should call me the "Comptroller". And since she's so great at filing our budgets, papers, and bills as well as keeping track of the decisions we make, as well as the follow-up involved so that we can ACT once we have the money in hand, I said I'm gonna call her the "Administrator" lol. Well to make a long story short we settled on the fact that she's the "Commissioner", and I am the "Mayor" lol! (right honey?)

So anyway, as you can see this new turn of events has us STOKED! And we are both certain in the fact that the Lord is blessing our efforts in ways we could only dream of! For the longest time both of us have been 'worried' about our Gazelle Intensity, because certain circumstances prevented us from generating any extra income. We 'wanted' to get to a point where it could be realistic, but even a recently as last month it just didn't seem possible.

We knew the loan would be paid off in November and that had us amped enough, but we didn't know where else we could squeeze out more income. For the time being that no longer appears to be an issue and I truly and openly praise God for making a way. We're so undeserving of how well He's protecting and accelerating our efforts! WOW!

Which brings me to my point for today: It's really true that He will make ways for you, when you start moving His way! (Oooh I LIKE that one, did that really just come from ME?! lol)

Mmm, I think I can stop right there for now, that'll preach all by itself!

For those of you who are attempting a Total Money Makeover, and really giving it your ALL, THIS is for YOU. It doesn't start out easy, and it doesn't always feel easy as you're going through it, but I can GUARANTEE that it is EASILY worth the effort! (Man I'm just on a roll today with the good quotes! lol)

You will suddenly see things open up in amazing ways as you continue in this process as long as your heart is in it for the right reasons. Not to BE RICH, or to flaunt your newly reclaimed income potential recklessly. No not at all! Chasing those things is what got you here in the first place! Instead, once this process takes ahold of the way you think, feel, and interact with your money, you wont even WANT all of the things your money will now be able to afford you! Yes, when you get to the other side of this thing - when you are finally able to scream "WE"RE DEBT FREE!!!!!!" by all means celebrate and enjoy your accomplishment. But I promise you, you wont be out to blow your extra income on every DVD that Best Buy carries, or every new toy for your car, or every color that Gucci bag comes in. I just don't think it's possible to go through this process and hold on to that type of materialistic mentality.

I'm not saying you wont get nice stuff once your debt free. Oh yes you will, but you wont be living your life slaving to acquire those things, because you'll be in a position to safely afford them while living within your means. And there's a BIG difference between the two.

"If you live like no one else...one day you will live like no one else!"

Lord, I cant wait for that day. But thank you in the meantime for what you are allowing us to do with each day you give us between now and the day we pay off that last bill! And Lord you know this isn't just about the money for us. I love you for what you are teaching me as a steward and a husband. I love that what we are learning can be just as easily applied to how we steward our TIME, or set our PRIORITIES, or how we manage all of the other resources you've given us. My marriage is stronger for us having gone through this. I am stronger in my trust that you will provide in EVERY circumstance what is needed for me to rely totally on you. If I wasn't going through this process, I don't know how else you would have shown me all that you are teaching me. But I'm thankful that you chose to call us to bear witness to this message. Thank you for your ways and your mercy towards me and my family. We do this to honor YOU... because you really do own it all!

Your servant,

@W






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A Near-crash Course In STUPID TAX!

Photo courtesy of rollingtheberries

I messed up royally yesterday...

Stupid Tax can be defined as anything stupid you do that ends up costing you money. Simple as that. It can be that get rich quick scheme that is so "foolproof" that you used your rent money as the down payment. It can be that $700 white Prada bag you accidentally spilled nail polish on (let's have a moment of silence for the ladies, I know they felt that one. lol)

So yeah, I messed up yesterday. It's almost a shame because otherwise it was a truly PERFECT day! We got to church early. (A rarity.) We took communion. (MUCH needed.) We spent time with our friends and church family. (Always a pleasure.) And then we decided to drive across the Potomac and check out the newly opened National Harbor.

It was nice over there but we didnt stay because my wife didnt have a change of shoes and I didnt want her feet to hurt. So we were headed back to VA, and while trying to merge onto 95 South, I saw a muffler lying in the middle of the lane. The car in front of me centers their car and rides right over it without incident... I try to do the same... center my car over it and...

The muffler somehow nicks the inside wall of my front driver side tire... instant blowout.

See friends, THAT'S stupid tax lol. Like I alwasy say: If you're gonna fail, fail epicly! lol

But here is the amazing difference between the stupid tax I used to pay with regularity, and the stupid tax I occasionally have to pay now: There is no pain, and there is no panic. Instead there is peace, Financial Peace, because I've already budgeted money for my mistakes. It's called our emergency fund, and this situation is a prime example of why you need one.

We have money in our emergency fund to cover replacing the blown tire. And that's all there is to it. We just pay to replace the tire and keep it moving! No wringing our hands. No being caught financially unprepared. No flared tempers with the wife and no arguing.

Financial PEACE.

Once again, my wife was effortlessly calm, and supportive. Her disposition in times of adversity truly humbles and awes me. We were on the side of the road laughing and cracking jokes as I put the spare tire on! Once I finished putting it on, we spent the rest of the afternoon driving the long way home thru DC. We just had a BLOWOUT, this is supposed to be serious emergency stuff and we're both as carefree as we were at church earlier!

On that note, I'm certain that our taking communion earlier at church played a large part in the peace we felt in this situation as well.

Isaiah 26:3 (KJV) says: Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.

The Word aint no joke! That's exactly where my mind was (On Him), so I know that's where the real peace came from... peace that not even all this money talk can't buy.

Thank you Jesus,

@W

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Full Circle: How Our TMM Began...

Photo courtesy of ZaksterNT

Over the past 2 weeks I've taken a break from the blog. I needed to clear my head because I've been overwhelmed by the resonsibility I feel towards you as my readers. See I want to reach you, but most of the time I dont know how effectively I'm doing that. I thought about extending this 'break' for the blog through the rest of the year. I thought about quitting it altogether. But something happened last Saturday that changed my mind.

I've often heard the saying: "When you feel you've reached the end, try going back to the beginning."

Last week my wife and I went away for the weekend with a group of married couples for our annual Duets Retreat. On Saturday morning, my wife shared a portion of our financial testimony with the group and it was incredibly powerful to hear it from her.

No sooner than my wife stopped talking, the couple next to us tapped her on the shoulder. They wanted to know more. A few hours later, while walking with another couple, the conversation again turned to the testimony she gave. We spent the rest of the afternoon sharing with them just a few of the blessings we've experienced since this journey began for us. There is something beautiful about witnessing someone hungry to change their life for the better, and it continually blesses us to be a part of moments like that.

There was something I kept identifying with in that couple. It was an urgent need for change. It made me realize that it was a year ago this week that we were first exposed to Dave Ramsey's TMM. The similarities are strangely alike the more I think about it.

This time last year my wife and I were just getting back from our Honeymoon, which we celebrated at the same location as this year' Duets retreat. The next week at church, a young couple ran up to us in the lobby and happily pushed a bag into our hands. The couple was on the leadership council for the ministry, and had taken extra special care of us at the retreat. Inside the bag, was a book wrapped in tissue paper... The Total Money Makeover. At the time we were more grateful for the thought and gesture than we were for the actual book.

A month went by. It was now September and we had never given the book a second glance, but we were now in the greatest financial challenge of our young marriage. We prayed over who to call, who to open up to about the trouble we were facing, and the Lord directed us to them again.

So on September 13th (my birthday) we called and explained the situation to them and they proceeded to share their amazing testimony with us. All we were looking for was Godly counsel from people who had been in our shoes before, nothing else... but by the end of the conversation they had offered to gift us a portion of the money we needed for our situation. (And not a small gift either!) A few days later, we went over to their house to pick up the gift, and they had another one waiting for us to go along with it. It was Dave Ramsey's 13-cd Financial Peace University set.

From that moment on we became students of this movement, and stewards of the message. We began our makeover officially in October when we did our budget, and started having weekly meetings. But the seeds were planted in August and September when they handed us the book (that we never looked at tsk tsk tsk...) and again when they gave us counsel and set an excellent example of generosity through their cheerful giving.

In Revelations 12:11 (KJV) is says: And they overcame by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.

NEVER discount the power of your testimony! I never thought we would be here, or at least not this early in our marriage. I was thinking we would reach it maybe 10 years from now... maybe. But within the next year we will have erased ALL of our debt with the exception of our mortgage. All within 2 years of grinding and putting off the instant gratification this world tries to shove down our throats daily. And the only reason I'm online typing this out to you is so that you can KNOW you can do this too. That's it. That's our tesimony in a sentence! We are doing this because we know that YOU can do this.

And so now it has come full circle for us a year later. Now we are on the leadership counsel for the couple's ministry. Now others are seeking us out for the same counsel we sought. And now we get to be the couple gleefully pushing a bag into another couple's hands with the book inside.

Today, I'm honored to push this post into your hand with the same energy and enthusiasm as it was handed to me!

...And to think I almost gave that up.

@W

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Our First "Non-emergency" Emergency

Photo courtesy of ultramarineblue

*The names, faces, dialogues, and timelines have been changed to protect the author - er I mean the innocent. lol

Tuesday morning 8:57am
My wife and I woke up, got ready for work, left the house, hopped in the car.... and just SAT there. When I tried to start up the car it seemed like all sorts of crazy things happened all at once and there were all kinds of alien error messages on the display that I'd never seen before. I tinker with the lights, door handles, the key, etc trying to mojo my car to life but It's not happening.

9:20 -- (To my wife) "Well I have that plug-in battery charger in the trunk, let me hook it up and we'll be on our way..."

9:30 -- (To the charger) "What do you mean your batteries are dead?!?" Oh the irony...

9:40 -- (To my wife) "Well, I guess we better just call AAA..."

9:45 -- (To the person on the phone) "What do you mean it's expired?!?"

10:00 -- Thinking...

10:15 -- Still thinking...

10:16 -- At this point *'Husband Panic' sets in. That’s what I like to call it when you know your wife is waiting on you to make a decision but you dont know WHAT to do! And to make it worse, every option you're considering has dollar signs attached to it. * This occurs internally and is completely undetectable by the wife. (Yeah right!)

10:20 -- We do what we must, we use our emergency fund to renew the AAA membership, because well this is a full fledged emergency.

Fast forward to 11:30
AAA arrives. The car is completely dead now, no response at all. He gives us a jump and we decide to try to drive the car for a while to see how it's performing.

12:30pm -- Obviously neither my wife or I are going to work today so we focus on the issue at hand: making sure our car is alright, it's the only one we have... and right now, though it's running, it's not letting us get out of first gear which makes me very very affraid. (My 'Husband Panic' is saying, "$ Please $ don’t $ let $ it $ be $ the $ transmission $!!")

12:45 -- While eating lunch in the car - which has been running since 11:30 and wasting our precious gas away and is now down to 1/8th of a tank - we decide to pray for guidance on what we should do next, and that this not set us back financially.

12:50 -- My wife remembers seeing an auto shop that specializes in servicing our make of car. So we drive over there, talk to the mechanic, and I reluctantly agree to let him run the $90 diagnostic.

1:30 -- He comes back and tells us that ALL of the problems are being caused by a bad battery and that he has reset the onboard computer parameters for us free of charge, and that he is also willing to install the new battery at cost! (without any service chages, etc) Praise God!

2:30 -- A family member came over to the shop to loan us their 2nd vehicle if we needed it, which at this point we do. The costs have slowly been mounting through the day and they have now exhausted our emergency fund.

The AAA, the diagnostic charge, and the replacement battery did us in, but our emergency fund did it's job perfectly!On top of this, I have every reason to be thankful that this emergency was able to be contained within our emergency fund at all! I was thinking of electrical damage ($$$), transmission work ($$$) and possibly engine work as well ($$$), but God protected us from those types of financial difficulties!

Equally important through this ordeal was the poise of my wife, and our ability to be of the same mindset in the midst of the storm. We both saw this as a CLEAR opportunity for God to show himself on our behalf, and He did just that. It was beautiful to see our Spiritual Peace working in tandem with our Financial Peace during this situation!

A friend of mine once defined a financial emergency simply as "Anything that happens that you have no financial provision for." So I guess I can't truly call this an emergency at all, we had the financial provision, and more importantly the Devine provision to weather this particular storm.

Isaiah 26:3 says:

You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.

Thanks again for joining me,

@W

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The Predator, The Prey, & The Unexpected Protector...

Photo courtesy of Olivier DELAERE

This is my first attempt to put video up on the site. I hope you enjoy this. During my last post I mentioned how Dave Ramsey advises debt-dumpers to be "Gazelle Intense". Well I found this video on YouTube that illustrates that saying, but with a twist. In this clip a cheetah (the predatory lenders of the world) is mercilessly toying with a baby gazelle (you and me) ... but the most amazing part is WHO steps in to protect the baby gazelle from the clutches of the enemy!



After watching that, I can't help but think of how Christ steps in to protect us when the enemy comes around to toy with us. My favorite part is that he doesn't even DO anything, just his mere presence makes the enemy roll out!

Hope this blesses you as much as it did me!

@W

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1/3 way home?

photo courtesy of householdriot

Mark today on your calendar... Ok well maybe not you, but I sure will. Today we reached a minor milestone in the fact that we just closed out our 10th account out of the 30 we started this journey with. So we are technically one-third of the way to our vision of debt freedom. **On a side note, finding a title for this post gave me fits!! This is why there's a question mark behind it... people always say 'half-way home' 3 quick words. But no one ever gramatically uses any other fraction in the same way... it always has to be "one-third-of-the-way" ect. which for me was just too many words for a snappy title. So please consider my title as my one-man mutiny against that stupid gramatical convention lol.

Now keep in mind this is only meant as a symbolic milestone because we are NOT anywhere near paying off 1/3 of our debt in dollars and cents... But trust me when you're in the grind of trying to eliminate debt you take EVERY victory you can.

So now, this is where our Debt Snowball finally gets rolling. Eventhough the monthly minimum for this personal loan was under $200, that freed up money now serves as a nice infusion to our financial situation. It gives us options we could not afford before. And no when I say "options" I don't mean I can just go blow that extra cash each month now LOL! It gives us some flexibility in how aggressively we can tackle various aspects of our debt.

Though it's a shame, I'm already eyeing the next milestone. It's gonna be maybe the most pivotal factor in our journey (unless my job wants to promote me again haha). In November we'll be making the last payment on our other line of credit. When that day comes I'll be LIT because it will open up yet another $500 each month for us to really throw at this debt in addition to what we freed up today!! It's at this point that the end will be in sight for us! Kind of like when a runner hits his second wind during a marathon. I imagine that's what it's going to feel like!

While I'm here I really just have to testify of how good God has been to us as of late. He's really been carrying us through some of these trying financial times. I can truly say there has been NO lack in my house even during the leanest of times. There have been nights where my wife and I would look in the fridge and see nothing that would make a meal...I mean the jount would be BARE! But by the end of the night when my wife was done cooking whatever was available we were full and satisfied. I dunno. Maybe you've never been THERE before but I know someone reading this (besides my wife and I) is feeling what I'm saying right here.

The word says in Psalms 34;1-9...

(King James Version)

1 I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
2 My soul shall make her boast in the LORD: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad.
3 O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together.
4 I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.
5 They looked unto him, and were lightened: and their faces were not ashamed.
6 This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.
7 The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.
8 O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.
9 O fear the LORD, ye his saints: for there is no want to them that fear him.

His word is true, and the events we've watched Him carry us through lately bear witness to that...

See ya next time,

@W

May Madness *UPDATE*

Photo courtesy of Canobie Fan

Last Friday I posted about all of the various expenses that seem to all converge on our finances in the lovely month of May! Here's a quick excerpt if you missed it -- and if you did miss it just scroll down the page and get to reading yo! lol

"...So that's been the month to this point, but even more daunting is the rest of the month to come! My cousin is graduating from medical school on the 19th in Richmond (again gas is the issue), My mother has a birthday on the 23rd, I'm in a wedding in New Jersey on the 25th for the same cousin, and on the 29th my niece is graduating from high school in South Carolina... our mode of transportation will be by car... gas is approaching $4.00/gallon... not to mention that before we can even GET on the road we need to replace the 2 front tires and get an alignment and oil change as well (We're looking at maybe *$250 for those to be done)!! This is why I love and hate May at the same time!!"
*Though it says $250, it actually should have said $350. Big... big... difference ha ha.

So I just want to give a quick update... God has really been in the midst of this process. It seems that at every turn I see costs coming in below what we had estimated! This is great because it gives us more resources to throw away at the gas pump while we're on this trip.

I had estimated it to cost about $200 for the front tires to be replaced. But check this out, we ended up getting 20% off because we experienced some customer service issues where we got the work done. (A very long story, but as you can see it worked in our favor.) So we ended up paying $166 after taxes were included!

"But wait... there's more!"

So next comes the Oil change, tire rotation, and alignment.. I was expecting these to come to about $150 total: $40 for oil, rotation included, and $110 for the alignment.

Well I forgot that my car requires synthetic oil which adds $25 to the cost out the gate, but as a buffer they had a special going where it basically took $35 off the cost of the oil change! Truth be told the special on the billboard outside said "Oil change and rotation -- $19.99" but of course the synthetic oil removed that as an option. Sigh... So anyway it came up to $45 for the oil change and rotation (which worked out well since the tires were replaced the day before!)

The only thing left to do was the alignment. Man, again I'll be honest here... after I drove around with the new tires I REALLY had 2nd thoughts about having the alignment done at all. I wrestled with it for a while cause y'know this is $110 we're talking about! And to make it worse the more I drove, the more I realized that at least in MY opinion this thing was driving straight as an arrow! At one point I centered it in my lane, took my hands off the wheel, and just let it steer itself. I kidd you not, I went for a mile straight like this and the wheel stayed right where I had aimed it.

I finally decided to still have it done, with a lil prodding from my wife. Yes we could pocket the $110 and put it towards something else... but we just got brand new tires, so if we didn't get the work done now, WHEN would we ever get it done? Fact is there was no more advantageous time to do it than now. And besides we're not just doing it for the sake of this trip, we NEED our car in tip-top shape cause right now it's the only one we've got. Shoot, if you could've seen how it steered before we replaced the tires, you would NOT have ever wanted to drive in the lane next to us on the road. No lie, the alignment was so bad that if you took your hand off the wheel, it would INSTANTLY veer 45 degrees to the right! lol wow, the things that the Lord keeps us safe through! Final cost came to about $140 because we had a $15 coupon that we used towards the work.

So all in all, we came up to about $305 for maintenance on the car when we expected to pay $350... and guess where that surplus $45 is going? Yup right towards gas expenses. Sigh...

See ya when we get back,

@W

I did'nt even know God could type!!

Photo courtesy of pbrian49

So check this out... We just got a letter in our mailbox this evening from God. Yeah the letterhead says it came from our mortgage company, but God devised, typed and mailed it out to us. (Hmm does God use stamps? lol)

To make a long LONG story short we had an on-going issue with our mortgage company. They had wrongfully imposed insurance coverage on our condo unit, which caused our mortgage payment to go up by nearly $200 each month. The reason we knew this was wrong was because my wife used to work as a loan officer. The type of loan they were trying to force on us was not required by law because we owned a condo versus owning a single-family house.

The truly amazing part is that if my wife had not been aware of our rights in this situation, we would've been swindled out of an extra $200 each and every month! This really makes me wonder about others who have no idea what their rights are when dealing with corporations and companies that throw around intimidating verbage and clauses on their forms.

We had told them that they would not receive a penny more from us than we had already been paying no matter what the statements said. I'll be honest, it took great faith for us to say that to them. But we came to a point where we were not willing to be moved on the issue. And we knew that God was on our side. There was no way we could afford what they were demanding and that was that. And what's more they were demanding something of us that they had no right to demand.

Ok so i said i would keep a long story short, but if you've read ANY of my posts you'll know I just cant do that lol. So let me add some background. In order for us to prove to them that we did not have to purchase the policy they demanded, they wanted US to provide proof of our condo association's insurance coverage for the unit. Our condo association assesses a $250 fee for requesting this information... Wait I'm not sure your following me so I'll put it another way: the mortgage company wanted us to pay to prove that we don't need insurance on their property, and the penalty for NOT doing so would be that they would FORCE a policy of their choosing onto our loan and make us pay anyway!

That's practically like the bank you secured your auto loan thru telling you that they need you to buy Supreme-grade gas from a specific gas station even though your owner's manual says that only Mid-grade is required for your vehicle! And if you refuse, then they will fill your gas tank with Supreme in the middle of the night and simply add the cost to your loan each and every month lol. How absurd would that be?! Could you imagine walking up to your car and seeing a receipt sticking out from under your windshield wiper?! It's a crazy visual, I know, but I think you see my point.

Now to be "fair" lets look at this from the mortgage company's perspective. Until we pay off the mortgage in full, THEY still OWN our house. So any insurance purchased only protects THEIR investment! But wait, if they were so concerned about insuring THEIR investment against any type of damage or loss, why would they use us as a middle-man to achieve that? Because just like many other clauses and mortgage company policies, it's assumed that just because they said it or put it in writing, it must be lawful and the homeowner simply MUST be obligated to do it. This type of thing is done on a daily basis to millions of homeowners across the nation. And nine times out of ten the homeowner complies with the demand because they have no idea what their rights are within the situation.

So anyway enough of that, lets get back to the letter from God. Back in March we get an official looking letter from our mortgage company saying that effective April 1st our payment would be inflated by $200, which started this whole long drawn out dispute. So then another identical letter arrives yesterday in the mail from our mortgage company saying that effective April 1st our payment amount would be reset again... But the catch is that this "new" payment amount is now $50 lower than our ORIGINAL payment! The only difference between the 2 documents was the new payment amount and the date the letters were issued. Ok, so no it's not a huge amount, but we had specifically been praying that God would relieve the situation somehow... And he did! And not only that the letter came just days after my last blog post about the cost of gas and all of the miscellaneous expenses that seem to be hitting us this month. And on top of that, we had basically expected God to only keep us at our original payment amount in the first place... we never even thought for a moment that it would decrease! We were only expecting fairness in the situation, but God wanted to show favor!

What a blessing it is to be able to see God's hand in times of blessing, trial and even uncertainty. By answering our prayer about the bogus insurance, He also freed up some extra loot for gas JUST as we as we had prayed as well! He's always looking out for us!

Ephesians 3:20,21 says it this way:

Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, 21 Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.

Thank you Jesus!

@W