The last few months have been an interesting time in my life. While it’s hard to discuss and explain everything that has been happening on a public platform, I have so desperately missed writing throughout all of it. It’s been difficult to login to this account and have a deep desire to write, but no creative energy to put towards actually typing anything out. This is the first time that I can remember this being a problem for me. I’ve written a public blog since college, and I was always able to put my thoughts on “paper” and get them out into the small world I cultivated on my site. So it was very painful and depressing to lose that and truly experience real writer’s block.
There is a lot that will not be included in this post…but I’m writing it because I’ve finally pushed past that huge block and have something exciting that I want to share with you!
Hubs and I reached a point in our marriage where we no longer had control of our money. We struggled making payments without charging our credit cards, and those charges only exacerbated our stress each month as our minimum payments increased. We were living above our means and it was crushing us. I had previously heard of Dave Ramsey and casually listened to his podcast/radio broadcast but could never get past my own assumptions about budgeting and would quickly disregard any information/advice he gave. During one particularly tense financial conversation with hubs, I realized that we no longer had a choice and had to act to gain control of our money. Dave was the first person that I looked into and after some initial investigation, I decided that we needed to join his Financial Peace University.
Fast forward to almost completely the 9-week class and basically one month into finally budgeting and we are in a completely different place mentally, emotionally, and financially. All of our problems aren’t solved, obviously, but we aren’t spending nights in tears asking how we are going to make it work. We also added another tool to our “tool belt” and began using You Need A Budget (YNAB). As of writing this we are still using the Free Trial but have decided to keep it and pay for the yearly cost ($83.99) because it’s such a great system and have proven to be extremely helpful for us.
I can’t recommend each of these programs and tools enough! If you are struggling to pay bills or you just want to better understand where your money goes each month, these programs will make everything easier! I’m hoping to post about YNAB more specifically later, so for now I’ll just say that the information we’ve learned about money and the financial world through Financial Peace and YNAB has completely changed the course of our lives. Our marriage is better, our communication and understanding about our money are better, and we are no longer using credit cards…like AT ALL. It’s been wild in all of the best ways.
For example, in the midst of all these changes, I had to get a minor repair done on my car thanks to an impatient driver who grazed my car in a Michael’s parking lot. That repair cost me the entire deductible and more to fix. I wasn’t at fault and was confident I would be reimbursed for the fee, but until then I had to pay out-of-pocket. Before all of these classes, I wouldn’t have even blinked before handing over my credit card. I mean, who can pay hundreds of dollars directly out of their bank account? But Financial Peace is ALL ABOUT no debt, no credit cards. So I prayed, Hubs prayed, and I paid it straight out of my bank account. WHAT?!?
It was a huge leap of faith and it took us to some stressful places waiting for that money to come back. In fact, I had reached a particularly low point thinking we weren’t going to make it without that money and wept on the couch one night after work. As I was crying and praying, Hubs was opening the mail and literally walked over to me and said, “We just have to trust the process” and as he said it he placed the check from our insurance for the deductible.
As you can imagine, I began weeping again, but this time it was tears of joy. God came through for us in a BIG way and it was in the most perfect timing. And this is all within the first month! I’m hoping to post monthly updates and reflections as we journey towards being debt-free here, mainly for my own reflections but also hoping to inspire others to live debt-free too.
I’m not sure what the future of this blog will be. I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to write more now that I’ve finally gotten this one out. But I know I’ve said that in the past too. It doesn’t help that we don’t have a computer at home…but writer’s block has been the biggest obstacle in all honesty. So we’ll see. Thank you for taking this journey with me.
xo,
EH
Everyday Erika 