I have. Last week.

At first I wasn’t even sure I was going to share this story on my blog. Although I’m a pretty open person and almost everything in my life is fair game for my blog (hee hee) I wasn’t planning on sharing this particular story.

It showcases my stupidity and absentmindedness to it’s fullest. But God took this little happening in my life and pretty much did an all out miracle for me. I see God’s hand all over the story I’m about to share with you.

Yes, yes….I’m getting to it already!!

So….last Monday, 4th Of July to be exact, we went to the zoo. (Pictures to come!! I’m so back logged right now….)

Mike had the day off and we thought it would be a great day to get out as a family and go to a zoo in the area we’d never been to.

Over the weekend we had been working on and updating our budget spreadsheet  ( via Financial Peace University) and had noticed a few mistakes miscommunications  on my part on the spreadsheet that needed fixing. Due to this fact, we had no “extra” money in our checking account. On my way out the door to leave for the zoo I thought “What if we have some sort of emergency while we’re an hour away from home? And we can’t use our debit card?? “  Remember my good intentions as you read the rest of this story…

So, I remembered that I still had the envelope with our vacation money sitting in my desk that I hadn’t deposited yet. I thought ” Let me grab this and throw it in my purse. Just in case.”

It was a lot of money.  Over one thousand dollars of a lot of money. Way more than I should have  ever been carrying around in an envelope.

Many of you are probably cringing, knowing what’s probably coming.

And you would be right.

Anyway back to my story.  We arrived at the zoo and started enjoying our time there. I had envelopes with the girls zoo spending money, our zoo spending money along with the vacation envelope. I had envelopes all over the place!  We bought stuff in one gift shop on our way out and then stopped at a Brazilian restaurant for some delicious dinner.

We got home late, hot, and exhausted but happy. Everyone threw their stuff on the dining room table and went off to wash up and go to bed (the kids) and watch t.v ( mommy and daddy).

Tuesday morning we got up and I rushed Katelyn off to her first day of Super Summer at church and ran errands after I dropped her off. Everything that had been dumped on the dining room table had not been looked at or dealt with until Tuesday night.

Tuesday night I thought to myself that I needed to clear off the table and that that vacation envelope should go back to the drawer I had it in and then deposit it. I did a quick glance in my purse and didn’t see the envelope. I felt a slight troubling twinge but figured I’d do a better search in the morning.

Wednesday  morning I got up and looked through my purse for the envelope again.

It wasn’t there. All the other empty ones were there but the BIG one wasn’t. My heart started pounding a bit but I thought that it probably fell out of my purse onto the mess that was the dining room table. After looking through and clearing off the dining room table, I found that the envelope wasn’t on the dining room table either.

Now, at this point, I’m starting to sweat just a little.

Ok, seriously. Ahem. It’s time to find this thing. Time to come out envelope, ol’ buddy, o’l pal with my lots -of -vacation- money in it!!

Aha! I must have put it on my desk with other papers I just put there. Whew. Dodged that one!

After tearing apart my desk and office I found that the envelope wasn’t there either!!!! The envelope was not in any of the “logical” places it should have been.

At this point I am starting to P-A-N-I-C. Oh God!! No really. Not taking the Lord’s name in vain here. Oh, God help  me!!!

What idiot loses a thousand dollars in an envelope and has no clue how it happened???

Me , apparently!!

At this point you must also know that I hadn’t told my husband about it yet. I hadn’t even told him I had taken the envelope to begin with. It was such a passing thing it didn’t even cross my mind to tell him I’d done it.

Think. Think.Think.

Target. I went to Target yesterday. It must have fallen out of my purse at Target. Pretty sure I saw it in my purse at Target.

Maybe.

Called Target. Sorry, they don’t have it.

CRAP! Besides, if it had fallen out at Target WHO would pass up an envelope with that much cash in it?? No one, most likely, this day and age.

I called the Brazilian restaurant we ate at. They didn’t have it.

I spent all of Wednesday SICK and with my stomach twisted in knots. I couldn’t focus on anything. I couldn’t eat. I was worried sick. And trying to figure out how to tell Mike that I had managed to lose our hard earned vacation money. The whole time I’m praying, praying, praying.

Lord, please don’t let this happen to me. I had good intentions!!

Please help some kind person to have found that envelope if I dropped it somewhere and turned it in.

Please let it be in the house somewhere and guide me to it!

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

All day Wednesday I prayed and all day I kept hearing the name of the gift shop we bought souvenirs at at the zoo in my head. I kept thinking “ Nah. I couldn’t have left it there. I’m almost positive I saw it once we got home!“. But that name kept coming up in my head.

So, I told myself I’d call the gift shop the next morning and if they didn’t have it I would HAVE to tell Mike what had been going on and tell him that I had lost our vacation money.

So I went to bed with lead in my stomach but feeling slightly hopeful. We got up Thursday, I dropped Katelyn off at Super Summer and waited impatiently for 10 am to come. At the time I was at the library waiting for one of the kids programs to start for Maddy. I ran outside,  made the phone call and gave the manager all my info. She said she’d look and call me if they found anything.

With a heavy heart I hung up and went inside to finish out the childrens activity and then go pick up Katelyn from Super Summer. When I got home my answering machine was beeping.

Heart pounding, I pressed the play button and heard ” Hello, this is Eric from XYZ zoo and you had called about a lost envelope with money in it. Well, we found your envelope.... Please call  Tina at this number so we can get this back to you.”

I burst into tears of relief! I couldn’t believe it!!

I couldn’t dial the number fast enough. They told me I had left it on the counter on Monday and they had put it in their safe. I could come whenever I wanted to pick it up. I told them I’d be leaving within the  next half hour. I packed the kids back in the van, grabbed some lunch for them and dropped the oldest two off at my inlaws after explaining the whole story to them. Then Jocy and I drove an hour there to pick up the envelope. I wasn’t going to be completely calm until I had that thing in my hand!!

As I drove I kept thinking- What if it’s not my envelope? What if it doesn’t have all the money in it?

Then I kept telling myself that 1. God wouldn’t have brought me this far to have that envelope not me mine and 2. What other idiot would have accidentally left an envelope of money there on Monday?

Alas, this story has a great ending. It WAS my envelope and ALL of the money was there! I told “Tina” I could kiss all of them for being so honest and returning my envelope.

But, God also deserves a lot of praise. He was watching over that envelope and he was the one protecting it. It could have easily been snatched up but He allowed it to be returned. And He kept telling me all day on Wednesday to call the gift shop!! I was just too dumb to listen.

If only…right? I could have had that envelope a couple of days sooner!

That’s why I’m sharing this story. To show you how amazing God is. I’m so thankful to him for relieving me of that burden. God’s hand was completely at work all of last week.

I guess you’re wondering what Mike thought of all this?

Well, at first I wasn’t going to tell him. I thought why create needless distress for him when it all worked out. But we’re a team. We tell each other everything. As much as I wanted to keep that little foible to myself I knew I should tell him about it. And face whatever music there may be. He had the right to be upset. That was A LOT of money to almost lose!  Everyone else in our families knew due to me asking for major prayer so it was only right that he know too.

And you know what? I’m glad I told him Sunday afternoon.

His reaction was completely none emotional. He closed his eyes and groaned (probably like you did) when he saw where my story was going. But then he said  ” It’s just money. Mistakes happen all the time.”

He’s cool like that.

God is good!! Our vacation money is recovered and where it should be. Just a week ago today I was sick with worry. Today I’m carefree as a bird.

Thank you, Lord!

1. Not selling our house- Last January  were spent looking at houses and getting ready to sell ours. It seemed liked everything was in place and we had found several bigger houses in better locations for us. When it came time to put the house on the market our Realtor told us that after doing a market analysis for our area we’d have to sell our house for waaay less than what we planned because of how the houses in our area were selling. So, super disappointed, we made the decision to wait. And now it’s a year later and we’re still in the same house. I learned a lot about contentment last year.

2. Financial Peace University/ Becoming Debt Free- In March we took a Financial Peace University class at our church and by the end of June were DEBT FREE. It was a HUGE achievement in our marriage. We learned so much about how to manage our finances and to really control our spending. We spent 9 years struggling with debt and having no control over our finances, despite the good salary my husband receives. We learned better communication over our finances and actually work together now. This is the first time we’ve come into the new year with NO DEBT and it is an awesome feeling. We paid cash for Christmas and have no more credit cards. Did I mention how HUGE this is for us?

HUGE.

3. Pregnancy/Miscarriage- In April of last year we found out that at after almost 2 years of trying to conceive we were finally pregnant! We were elated. I even posted this picture of the girls on Facebook and on my blog to help announce the glorious news. (I’m not one to wait….)

Six days later I miscarried. Although I hadn’t been pregnant for that long I was devastated and angry. The night I started spotting I went to one of our Financial Peace classes. I was developing a migraine and worried but didn’t want to miss a class. One of the couples in our class had  had their fourth baby a few days before I miscarried and they brought him to class that night to show everyone. I thought ” How ironic! They’re bringing in a new life and I’m losing one.”

4. Pregnancy Round Two- After much struggling and anger at God for not letting us sell our house, allowing me to get pregnant in the first place and then allowing me to lose it, I started calming down as Spring wore on. Summer came and we were all in a good place. I was settling in emotionally and in a happy place. Then, in July, to our great joy, I found out I was pregnant AGAIN!!  We had been hoping and praying it would happen again but weren’t sure how long it would take to happen this time. It could have taken another two years! But, praise the LORD, it didn’t!

We were so thrilled and thankful. And I’ll be 28 weeks this week with baby girl number 3! She’s due in March!

Oh, and a month later my sister found out she was pregnant with her second. A girl, due in April! We’re a month apart!

5. Going On Nana and Papa’s boat for the first time: We took the girls on my inlaws’ little boat for the first time this past Summer. It was so fun! I had been on it before, but they never had. It was quite the memorable and fun day. Granted, it was an overcast, cold, rainy day when we went. We didn’t let that stop us from having fun!

6. Anniversary trip to Salem,MA- I’ve always had a huge fascination with learning more about the Salem Witch Trials. So off we went this past August to spend the day in Salem, MA to celebrate our 9th wedding anniversary. I learned more than I ever wanted to know about the Salem Witch trials that day and had a great, romantic little getaway with my husband. Unfortunately, my camera battery died at the very beginning so I have no pictures from that day!

7. Homeschooling- Last year was the year we decided to try our hand at homeschooling! We purchased the Kindergarten curriculum from Christian Liberty Academy and started homeschooling our daughter the second week in September. I have absolutely loved homeschooling thus far.It has been a challenging, frustrating at times and rewarding experience so far.

These were taken the very first day we started homeschooling….

I also do preschool work with my 3 year old daughter every day. She partakes in the art, Bible, science and field trip activities we do.

My husband finished our homeschool room in the basement not long after these pictures were taken. Now we do school every day in our little school room. We  love it!

8. Singing In Our Church Choir- This past September I started singing in our church choir. I hadn’t sung in a choir in ages and I had scheduling conflicts the previous year so I was unable to join. I have so enjoyed it! We’ve caroled, done  a Dessert Theater and sung almost every Sunday. I’ve had many opportunities to sing solos, duets and trios and it’s been so fun! We have a very talented bunch of people in our choir.

9. My Family’s Visit For Thanksgiving- I was so blessed to have my whole family visit for Thanksgiving week! My sister, husband, niece, brother and parents all flew up from Texas and stayed in my house for the whole week. It was a tight fit but an awesome time together! My brother in law had never been to New England so this was a new experience for him. My sister and I got to “be pregnant together” while she was here. We spent a day at  Boston Museum Of Science and had a blast. That is a memory that will live in my mind forever.

The girls are with their Geempaw in this space shuttle replica.

My parents with their three current granddaughters. Two more coming in the Spring!

10. The Passing Of My Uncle Mike- On Christmas day we received the sad news that my uncle Mike had died after a long battle with Lymphoma. He was a great, godly, man and will be greatly missed. We were all blessed by who he was. His family has also been a great testimony in  their peace and attitudes. They are sad but also filled with hope since they know where Mike is and that they will all see him again some day.  He’s in Heaven, cancer-free with Jesus!  I will certainly never forget getting the phone call about his passing.

There are so many other moments I’d love to mention but since I’m pressed to keep the list at ten these are the ones I chose.

Do you have moments that defined 2010 for you?

This post is linked to Top Ten Tuesday hosted by Oh Amanda.

I would hate to trivialize real depression but I think I was suffering a little bit of that as well. Many things were getting to me. I found myself to be totally unmotivated to do anything, sad and just…. blah.

Thankfully I’m getting past all that now. I think the more I didn’t do anything, the more it bothered me and the more it put me into a slump.  I received some great encouragement from a couple of friends that really helped me start to snap out of it. I’m starting to get back on track with some things and it feels good.

Here’s a random list 0f what’s been going on in my life the past few weeks:

~I’m back to getting up early to read my Bible and pray. It makes such a huge difference in my day.

~Summer is here! Woohoo! Most, if not all, of my commitments are done for the next few months.

~  We finished all of our floors! We still have a few more projects to finish but everything is coming along nicely. I do have pictures,for those of you who have requested to see the results. We’re having a yard sale soon and I can’t wait to get rid of some of our stuff and get some money for it.

~We finished Financial Peace University! 13 weeks of hard work on our budget and changing the way we handle our finances. The good news is that we’ll be debt free (except for our mortgage) at the end of this month!!

~I started getting back on track with my healthy eating and exercising. Granted, I haven’t actually exercised yet but I’m getting my mindset headed in the direction. I was super discouraged about that for awhile but I know the longer I go without exercising and overeating the more discouraged I’m going to be about that area of my life!

~ The pool is open!

~Katelyn still sees bugs in her bed every now and then. We’ve noticed a pattern, however. When we have, crazy, busy days where our normal schedule is thrown off and she gets overexcited and over tired that’s when she sees bugs. Days where she eats junk food, goes to bed late and has a ton of extra coming and going seem to contribute to her seeing bugs. I’ve really tried to keep her schedule consistent. We also moved her into the bed closest to the door. She begged for that and said it would help her not see bugs. That also seems to have calmed her down a little. She still has at least one episode a week where sees and feels bugs in her bed. She did end up getting MRSA (which was completely unrelated to the bug episode) Mike also got it too. Thankfully we’re all healed up now!

~We’ve had the pleasure of getting to know our neighbors behind us the couple of months. I wish we had gotten to know them a long time ago. They have three adorable girls that my girls love playing with!  The girls ages are close  ( almost 2, almost 3, 4.5, 5.5ish, 7.5ish) and they are so cute playing together. My neighbor, Jess, snapped these pictures of our girls playing together at her house a couple of weeks ago.

(The youngest little girl is not in these pictures. She’s just as cute as her older sisters. I may have to steal her one day. Ssshh… don’t tell her mom.)

Jess took this awesome picture of Katelyn that I just love…

and another awesome picture of Madelyn!

Seriously, it’s they’ve been a huge blessing to get to know.

Have you ever been in a funk? If so, what do you do to get out of it? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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UPDATED:

Alli from Alli ‘N Son just told me about her new blog carnival called “Thank You Journal Thursday” where you can link up your post about stuff that you’re thankful for in your life. What a great mood lifter. Talk about defunkifying! So, I’m linking this post up to her carnival.

I’ll show you the girls’ bedroom first:

Here’s the before

Pardon the wall border mess. Mike was in the middle of peeling it off. I don’t think I’ll ever do border again! What a mess! This room was the nursery and still had the original nursery theme used by both Katelyn and Madelyn when they were babies. It was kind of bittersweet putting all of it away. I can use it again if I need to in a different room someday!

Here’s the after!

It’s a little bold but I think once we get all their stuff and other decorations on the walls it will tone it down a bit. Mike ruined it  a little bit for me when he started calling it ” The Dora room” because of the color. The pink/orange combo was also supposed to be 60/40 not 50/50 like it ended up.

Mike wants to sand their floor and re-stain it then we’re going to move them back in. I can’t wait! We got a free set of bunk beds from a man at church so once we buy the mattresses we’ll set that up in their.  We won’t set them up as bunkbeds ,though, since we feel they’re a little young for bunkbeds still. I’m not going to have a real “theme” for their room since they have an eclectic mix of stuff already. Their bedding is Disney Princess (they got it from Nana and Papa at Christmas)but their new valances are some mod looking flowers with pink and orange in them. Because the princess bedding has  a little orange in it ( I think!) it should go fine with the pink and orange on the walls.

Here’s the color of our bedroom walls. This is the first time we’ve painted in there since we moved in 6 and a half years ago. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the color. It’s called “Tibetan Orange”. If my room had been clean I would have shown you the whole room. But it looked terrible so I’ll have to show you a picture once wall art and picture frames are  back on the walls and my bed is  made (with the new bedding I got for Christmas!).

I don’t have a before  but just picture a dingy off white with ugly holes in the wall!

The color does darken our room a bit. That’s my only complaint about this color.

Here’s the color that we painted the playroom. The playroom was originally the dining room so I hope any prospective buyers will like this color for a dining room. I love it, although I know it’s another bright color and some may not.

Any of you who have been reading my blog for awhile have caught occasional glimpses of the walls in this room. They were the same dingy off white as my bedroom.

This color is called ” Japanese Fern”.

All in all I’m happy with it! When we had been looking at moving our realtor had kept telling us to paint everything neutral. But  a) We already had most of the paint and b) Maybe I’m different, but I liked the houses that had the bold, trendy colors. And if someone were to like our house enough to buy it in the future, it’s just paint! They can repaint it if they want. But I think these colors add a little something to the appearance on the inside.

Just my two cents!

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Grocery Shopping On A Budget Update

I mentioned several weeks ago that our grocery budget was being cut almost in half once we started budgeting when we started attending Financial Peace University. I wasn’t sure if we were going to be able to manage on $105 a week in groceries when we had been buying $200 a week before. Well, we’ve managed!!! And done pretty well at it too. And I haven’t been using coupons all that much. Not because I don’t like them or clip them. I do. I just haven’t been able to find too many coupons of stuff we actually buy. I’ve shopped with my list, kept a running tally with my calculator and bought a lot of store brand stuff.

Note: I have found that store brand stuff is not always just like the name brand stuff like many people claim. I bought store brand cheerios and gave them to Katelyn. I didn’t tell her they were different cheerios. After taking one bite she  said ” What are these? I don’t like these Cheerios.”

Store brand dish washing powder has also not cleaned like Cascade. As soon as I’m done with the box I have I’m going back to Cascade.

I also switched grocery stores. I started shopping at the cheapest  grocery store in our area, Market Basket. I’ve never liked them because the inside is usually ugly, old and sometimes not even that clean. But, boy, is my grocery bill smaller by shopping there. Like Mike reminded me, I’m not shopping because of the look of the store. If I want a nicer store I also have to pay higher prices. And I’ve found that the one I use is not as bad as I remembered and has a pretty good selection. Menu planning has really helped and not buying a lot of “extras”.

I don’t buy yogurt cups anymore. I buy the container o’ yogurt instead and spoon it into small cups. I don’t buy a lot of snack items i.e bags of chips, 3 or 4 different kinds of crackers, cookies etc. I don’t buy a lot of frozen stuff anymore. I don’t buy a large selection of breakfast cereal like I used to. I stick to Cheerios and Kashi Go Lean Crunch. Buying in bulk has helped. All of these small changes have made a difference.

I’m trying to make more stuff from scratch. I do still want to get the couponing thing down. My problem is finding coupons that I can use! I’ve also been price comparing( more than I ever have. EVER!) . I found 2% gallons of milk at Sam’s way cheaper than our cheapest grocery store here. Sam’s was selling them for $1.85 a gallon! I don’t know if that’s permanent or not but I grabbed 4 gallons. (Expiration on 4/24) I felt so proud of myself for noticing! I used to not really notice the price of grocery items unless they were outrageous. And when I used a coupon here or there I thought I was doing a great thing.

I’ve found that living on $105 (or less!!) a week is very doable.

Happy Monday!

I was wrong. Our “bad thing” happened three fold and it involved all three of our vehicles the past two weeks.

::Bad thing #1:

Some  #$$%^^&*  must have backed into me at Wal-Mart and left this nice dent in the front of my once pristine Odyssey. I didn’t notice it until I got home later that day. Or I should say, Mike noticed it and asked me about it!  Of course they didn’t leave a note or their insurance information.

The reasons I think this happened at Wal-Mart are:

a)On the day I noticed the huge dent, the only place I was parked with my nose out was at Wal-Mart.

b) I didn’t hit anything that day. You’d think with a dent that size I might have heard or felt me hit something.

We have a $1000 deductible on our car insurance. Since we don’t have anyone else to blame we have to pay for this out of  pocket.

We haven’t done that yet. I’m still driving around with the lovely dent in the front.

It’s a good thing we didn’t go ahead and have that fixed because of….

::Bad thing #2:

Last Wednesday (not yesterday) Mike calls me as I’m leaving to meet up with him to take Katelyn to Awana to tell me his car broke down and he’s at a gas station close by. I need to come and get him and wait for a tow truck to come.

So, we waited. And waited. And waited. Finally an hour and fifteen minutes later the tow truck finally came.

Come to find out the gas gauge was broken, Mike had run out of gas and ruined the fuel whatever and it needed to be replaced.

The total to have it replaced  was $725 .

Thankfully God provided for us in that area so we didn’t end up needing to use our emergency fund to pay for it. We certainly couldn’t use a credit card because we have no more credit cards!

Bad thing #3:

Last Saturday as I’m on my way to the Easter egg hunt Mike calls me all shaken up because he’s just been in accident with his truck. He had to stop short, his breaks didn’t respond correctly and he rear ended the car in front of him. His air bag deployed and the front of his truck is crushed.

We had just gotten his truck “back” several weeks ago.  Mike’s brother told us that instead of us selling it, as a Christmas gift,  he wanted to pay for a new engine to be put in so Mike could keep his beloved truck and drive it a while longer. Since we hadn’t been using the truck we hadn’t gotten around to getting collision coverage on it. Because of the way he hit the tires are kind of bent and it’s not really drivable.

Thankfully everybody was ok and nobody was hurt. Mike said an ambulance, fire truck and police cars all showed up and that he was asked about ten times if he wanted to go to the hospital. Mike got some bruising on his chest from the airbag but that’s about it.

As of yet we don’t know what the monetary damage is going to be. While the tow truck operator was lifting the truck onto the tow truck he noticed break fluid everywhere. He asked Mike if he knew that his breaks were leaking and that he should mention that in the report. He could be  found “not at fault” because of faulty breaks. The officer Mike spoke to said the same thing.  We did have to pay over a hundred bucks for the tow truck since the town called it and we didn’t get to use our AAA service. Thankfully AAA will reimburse us for that.

Mike has given his truck back to his brother in the hopes that he can sell of whatever he can and try to recoup some of the money he put into it as a Christmas gift.

All I can say is “wow”. We really feel like the Enemy was attacking us in the area of our finances because we have been trying to do so well with them. Yes, this class and this new way of life for us has caused a lot of fights and late nights  but it has also strengthened us. We are starting to feel like a burden has been lifted off our shoulders and that we are actually controlling our finances rather than our finances controlling us. We have started saving for all areas of our life rather than using the credit card or scrambling at the last minute for yearly fees, bills, birthdays or trips to Texas.  We’ve been faithful in our giving and even have our daughter’s giving out of their commission. I don’t think Satan likes that. He liked how our finances were a burden rather than a blessing before.

I could be wrong but that’s what it feels like.

Don’t get me wrong, I still highly recommend FPU but if you start taking the class…

Beware!!!

They are required to give $1 to church, $2 to savings and  keep $2. They put their money in some glass jars we have so they can see their dollars building up.

This way they are learning to give to church (We believe in tithes and offerings to church) save for their future ( maybe a car??) and then have money to spend as well. This will also teach them to value their money and make good choices when it comes to spending it. Katelyn seems to be having the most trouble with this. Madelyn doesn’t seem to care all that much.

Katelyn asked the other day if we could stop at Dunkin’ Donuts or McDonald’s. I told her I didn’t have any money for it but that she was more than welcome to spend hers. However, if she spent her money on junk food  she wouldn’t have any left to go to Toys R Us in a few weeks to buy a toy. She got all upset and said ” I don’t want to spend my moneys! I wan YOU to buy it with your moneys!!”

Aaahh.. the refreshing candor of children.

She also asked how much “moneys” she was getting and I said she was  getting two dollars after giving to our church and saving. She cried ” I don’t want  two moneys I want seven moneys!!”

We have quite a few lessons to learn, don’t we? But this is a great lesson in reality that many adults don’t get these days. Katelyn doesn’t like delayed gratification just like  most of us!

She’s also learning  working and getting money go together. This has been fun and eye opening!

Katelyn’s daily chore list is as follows:

Pick up toys in her bedroom

Pick up toys in playroom

Feed our dog Benny (I put the food in his bowl. She brings and takes the bowl)

Put dirty clothes in hamper/shoes in shoe basket

Madelyn’s chores are as follows:

Pick up toys in bedroom

Pick up toys in playroom

Put her shoes in shoe basket (we have a problem if losing shoes and/or tripping over them because they are always scattered around. Drives me nuts!!)

Put her dishes in the sink (or on the kitchen counter)

Everything else they are expected to do because we told them to and because they are a contributing and valued member of our family.

This chore chart and commission works for me!

And on a side note I wanted to share this small tidbit that has been working for me as well.

Do your kids eat oatmeal? Do your smaller ones have trouble getting the oatmeal from the bowl, on the spoon and into their mouth with out dumping it all over their shirt? Same goes for any kind of cereal.

I’ve found that a measuring Tablespoon works perfectly for this!

It’s deep enough to keep the oatmeal in the spoon without it pouring out as Madelyn tries to get it in her mouth. Eating oatmeal has become much less frustrating for her and me!

Works for me!!

This post is linked up to Works For Me Wednesday at We Are THAT Family.

Here’s one of the  myths about credit cards that Dave pointed out last night in the class (it is also in the workbook. I want to give credit where it’s due and not infringe on any copyright laws!)

Myth: I pay mine off every month with no annual fee. I get brownie points, air miles and a free hat.

Truth: Recent Dun and Bradstreet study found that when you use plastic instead of cash, you spend 12-18% more because spending cash hurts. So what if you get 1% back and a free hat?

He also showed a study on why McDonald’s now takes credit cards. With cash customers used to only spend an average of around $4. Now that McDonald’s takes plastic they spend an average of around $7.

There was another report that stated that 75% of all air mile points are never used or claimed. I can vouch for that from using my Discover card and then closing it never having used any of the points or miles accumulated on it. I didn’t have enough to do much with anyway!  We used to own a GM Master Card that you could rack up GM points with and get money off a new GM car once you had enough.  We thought that was a fantastic idea! We loved GM! Dave points out that the money you have to spend to get those points is  A LOT only to go buy a brand new car that loses thousands of dollar in value once you drive it off the lot. Not good math. Ummm… we did that. We still have that car. And it was payed off years ago thankfully but we paid a lot for it.  Dave only buys gently used cars, by the way. But that’s a lesson to be saved for another day!

The point is, many people think they can “beat” the credit card companies at their own game.  Usually they aren’t. Credit card companies aren’t making billions off  Americans each year because they’re dumb.  They are always going to find a way to make money off even the most frugal, careful and responsible person. It only takes one crisis, one lost job,  one time of paying your monthly balance late or forgetting and then you are rocketed into credit card hell. (My words, not Dave’s! The point is the same though.)

Here are some “Credit Card Crumbs” as Dave calls them from his lesson on dumping debt.

• The Total American consumer debt is more than $2.7 trillion
• The average household credit card debt has increased approximately 167% in the past 17 years
• There are 1.3 billion credit cards in circulation in America
• The credit card industry mails out over six billion credit card offers each year, sending an average of six offers a month to each American household
• 45% of American cardholders make only the minimum payments on their consumer debt
• The average balance per credit card-holding household is more than $9,300
• It would take over 13 years to pay off  the average credit card to balance if only making the minimum monthly payments of 4% at an average interest rate of 15%
• Credit card interest rates are often raised when a cardholder takes out a new loan, such as a mortgage, car loan or other type of credit account.
• A singe, first offense late payment can immediately raise a cardholder’s interest rate as high as 34%. A “late payment” is defined as anything that posts after 2:00 pm on the due date.
• In addition to increasing the cardholder’s interest rate, a card issuer can charge a fee of typically $29-39 for a late payment.
• The credit card industry takes in $43 billion per year in additional, unexpected fees from the consumer, such as late payment, over-the-limit, and balance transfer fees. Late fees alone bring in more than $11 billion.

• Overall, American households  spend over $412 billion in credit card charges each year.

Wow. Last night’s lesson was so eye opening. I was amazed at how much we fall for marketing schemes! And the amount that Americans waste on debt each year is astounding. I was mad at myself for the part I’ve taken in being careless with our finances. We have one card left to pay off and thankfully it will be paid off by the end of the year. And that will be the last credit card we own. We’re making sure every credit card account we’ve ever opened is completely closed.

Dave even showed results from a neurological study that showed the difference between pain sensors and those who paid with cash registered more pain that those who swiped with a debit or credit card.  Psychologically, we don’t see using plastic as spending “real” money.

That’s why we’ve loved (and hated!) using the cash system that Dave Ramsey teaches. Here’s the little envelope system that comes with the FPU kit. However, you can create your own envelope system by using plain envelopes!

Each envelope is also a little ledger so you keep track of what you took out of that particular envelope. As I said, you can do this with any envelope! I do like being able to carry this around with me.

In August there are huge changes coming to the credit card industry. Many of them are sneaky.  If you have a credit card please keep an eye on your credit cards and get rid of the ones you can.

The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.

Proverbs 22:7 (NKJV)

Owe no one anything except to love one another

Romans 13:8 (NKJV)

Cutting up our credit cards and using a cash envelope system works for me!

What are your thoughts on credit cards? Were any of these facts eye opening to you?

Do you struggle with credit card debt?

This post is linked to Works For Me Wednesday at We Are THAT Family.

I wish we were doing the above things mentioned in my post title because we’re rolling in money. But, alas, that’s not the case! We’re sleeping, eating and drinking money because that’s all we talk about right now! And that’s a good thing. Ever since we started Financial Peace University 3 weeks ago (tomorrow) we’ve been talking about our budget. We’ve been tweaking it. We’ve been looking at every single detail and giving every single penny a spot to go. And it’s been hard work! Oh how I’m tired of it. We were warned that the first few weeks would be hard. I think it’s been harder for us since our finances were in such a sorry state! This is forcing both of us to sit down and take responsibility for getting control of our money and  money’s future. Mike spent hours on Saturday putting everything into excel and tweaking this or that. Then, a bill for my Real Simple magazine subscription comes in (it’s getting canceled!) and everything must get tweaked again for this month. Then something else will pop up we forgot about and the tweaking will start all over again! It’s been a painstaking process but a fantastic one for Mike and me. I hate it. I’ll admit it. My monthly” blow” money has already been spent before I touched it. On what? Girl Scout cookies and the book for our current Wednesday night Bible study! Girl Scout cookies!!!!  I like GS cookies but not that much. I was at a friends house a few weeks ago and noticed her adorable little girl  was selling them. They were sitting on the floor taunting me. I was hungry and those Samoas were calling my name. So, I bought (with an IOU), 6  boxes. I know… I know!  I didn’t have to buy that many! Well, as of last Wednesday I still IOU’d my friend!  Enter my monthly personal spending cash.

I hate talking about money. I hate worrying about it. I hate excel spreadsheets!! But, after we’re done with this class and on our way to financial peace and freedom I probably won’t feel that way anymore! It’s good for both of us to be this involved in our day to day finances. Mike has never been this involved. He usually left all that stuff to me and generally kind of knew where we were at. Now he’s neck deep in our finances! Dave Ramsey said that for the first three months or so our budget won’t work right and we’ll be tweaking and fixing it until we get it down pat. Well, that’s definitely happening for us!

Oh, and on a side note, we discovered we paid $30,000+ in taxes last year! Yes, THIRTY THOUSAND!  Thank you Taxachussetts! I hope the able bodied people who don’t have jobs because they refuse to  look for work are enjoying  OUR money  while my husband works until 1 am. I’ll probably get some negative comments about this. ” You hate the poor”. “You’re selfish” or    ” That’s not a very Christian attitude”.  I don’t hate the poor. Mike and I have actually been quite generous in helping those in need and we’ll continue to do that. The more we get our finances in order now they more we’ll be able to give in the future. We look forward to that part!  The Bible actually says that if you don’t work than you don’t eat! I’m all for helping someone in need. However, people who are poor because they are lazy don’t deserve my hard earned money. There are way too many people who take advantage of our welfare system and I begrudge every single cent that goes to them.

Anyway, I digress….

We’ve started the envelope cash system Dave Ramsey talks about and it’s really cramping our style. Which is a good thing! As I mentioned before we used to spend anywhere from $ 700-800 a month on groceries. We’ve decided on a $125 a week budget to see how well we do with it. Yesterday, we went grocery shopping for the first time since we’ve installed our cash only, $125 a week food budget. Because Mike gets paid every two weeks we took out $250 to last us for those two weeks. The plan was/is to plan all of our meals, including snacks, for the next two weeks. Then write down exactly all of the ingredients to what I’m going to need. Then each week I’m going to check what I have in my kitchen already and try to plan meals around that first before I buy anything new. Then go from there with my list. Then, I’m going to give couponing and planning my meals around what’s on sale  my best effort. We decided to make a trip to Sam’s a make a big bulk buy to kick off our new grocery budget plan. We knew this first trip would be expensive but that the next few  food shopping ventures I went on would cost way less because I wouldn’t need to buy as much.  Well, not only did we use up our $250 of grocery money at Sam’s we also used almost all of the money from our monthly “Clothing” envelope!!  We walked around Sam’s keeping a running total of our purchases on a calculator and writing certain prices down so we could compare them with our grocery store. I’ve never seen Mike so interested in “price per pound” before! I never thought I’d be one of those people with the calculator walking around the grocery store. But… there we were! It was very eye opening and I learned a lot from that one trip. And boy… was it hard to part with that money!

Once we left Sam’s we still needed to buy a few things from our grocery store. So I took the cash I had left for the grocery store from our “Clothing” envelope, my list and my calculator and went for it. I ended up not being able to buy everything on my list. After adding everything up from my cart I realized that some of the stuff we’d just have to do without this week. It was nothing major. One of the things I put back was yogurt cups for the girls. I had already grabbed a tub of plain yogurt so I figured they’ll have to do with plain yogurt mixed with something if they want yogurt the next couple of weeks. The other one was juice. We decided the girls would have to drink water once the juice we have is gone!  Now, today, we’ve come to realize I forgot butter and bird food! So, out of desperation we’re taking money from our mothly “Doctor” envelope (copay money for chiropractor or unexpected doctor visit) to pay for those things. It won’t be like this every grocery trip, of course. In fact, I’m feeling pretty confident we can keep our grocery bill to $125 a week or less with coupons, meal planning , buying generic and buying at Sam’s. Sadly, I won’t be buying some of the higher end, all natural, organic etc etc foods anymore until we get well under way with this. I’ll admit…I’m a name brand snob. For some reason name brand cereal must taste better than store brand in my mind! And I know that’s not always the case. And even if it is the case we’ll just have to make do! The “sacrifice” will be worth it in the end.

Mike and I made a huge break through with our purchasing  habits a couple of weeks ago. Our couch finally bit the dust and we didn’t go out and buy a new one with our credit card. Instead, we brought the love seat from the playroom into the living room and moved our recliner next to it. Then brought one of dining room set captains chairs in as extra seating. We actually like it better!  I also hung some new curtains I’ve had for over 6 months up in the living room. Here’s our new living room arrangement.

This is now my quiet time corner. Below is what my old quiet time corner looks like now:

And here is a close up shot of the curtains I got on clearance at Home Depot. I think they go great with my pillows and living room decor!

I’ll be posting about how things are going with our FPU class as we get further into the study. This should be interesting….

Oh, and Crystal at Money Saving Mom has great tutorials on menu planning, couponing, shopping sales and grocery shopping on a shoe string budget.

That’s right,  their honeymoon. They were willing to share part of their honeymoon time with us! For those of you who don’t know, Lauryn is my cousin….sort of.  In law.

When they visited our church yesterday everyone was trying to figure out how we knew each other. Some thought it was a surprise to us that they came while others thought they were a visiting couple that we just happened to hit it off with. And some are probably still not quite sure how we know each other.

Lauryn and I share the same uncle. I’m his niece on his wife’s side of the family (my maternal aunt) and Lauryn is his sister’s daughter. She’s my cousin’s cousin but not my cousin. Sounds like one of those logic/math word problems, doesn’t it?

Lauryn’s mom and my mom have been good friends since they were little meaning Lauryn and I have “known” each other since we were little, although I’m several years older.I haven’t seen Lauryn in almost 10 years.

Lauryn got married two Saturdays ago in Texas and her and her new husband are honeymooning here in New England. Since they were about three hours away from us they thought they would stop by our church for Sunday morning services and then go to lunch with us after. It was a great visit and we were happy to get to meet Daniel for the first time. Daniel and Lauryn are a super cute couple and were glowing from happiness. This was also Lauryn’s first time to meet Katelyn and Madelyn after having read so much about them on my blog! Katelyn quickly attached herself to Lauryn and Daniel and wanted to hold hands with them. Lauryn even kindly took Madelyn to the bathroom while I was waiting to rehearse a song after church! And she didn’t even complain when Maddy got some urine on her. A gracious young lady all the way!

Congratulations Daniel and Lauryn! It was great seeing you! God bless you two as you build a new life together. Love you guys!

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As I’ve mentioned we just started attending a Financial Peace University Class  by Dave Ramsey at our church. Tomorrow night will be our second class. Mike and I have been working on our budget all week. We’ve always had a very loose budget and …wow…this budget we have to create for the class is showing us how way off we were living before! We’re also having to share with the instructor {privately} how much debt we have-i.e loans, credit card, mortgage etc. Thankfully we only have a mortgage and some credit card debt.  We could be in a much worse financial situation. We cut up our credit cards over the weekend. That was a liberating (yet scary!) feeling. I closed all accounts except the one we have debt on still. We had several accounts open that we weren’t using so it was nice to close those down and be done with them.

I have to say my biggest struggle is going to be a food budget! I’m not used to having an exact, cash only grocery budget. I know we spend way too much on groceries and that’s with the  coupons  I use when I can. I’m going to try to implement a weekly menu plan, including snacks, and start buying a lot of generic stuff.

I don’t know what the average family of 4 spends on groceries. I don’t know what is considered about right or way too much. I have a feeling we are in the “Spend Way Too Much” category. We usually spend, on average, $160-200 A WEEK on groceries. That makes about $800 a month on just groceries!  Our new grocery budges is $100 a week. This will help in our losing weight endeavor as we’ll have to make sure our food lasts the allotted amount of time. We have budgeted  eating out on Sundays because that’s what we do. We eat out after church on Sundays and we won’t be be stopping that any time soon. It’s our weekly treat.

This will be an interesting journey but I know we’ll come out ahead! Like Dave Ramsey says ” Live like no else so you can LIVE like no one else!!” (or at least, I think I got that right!)  If you get the chance to take this course- DO IT! Even if you think you’re pretty good with your finances it still holds a wealth of info to make your finances even better. He talks about paying off  your house sooner, planning for your children’s education, planning for retiring with dignity, and building your wealth. All with wise saving  and spending and budgeting.  He doesn’t have any get rich quick schemes. His advice and methods are actually hard work and all about delayed gratification- i.e being an adult!

I will most definitely be blogging about our progress!

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To end my post today I thought we’d do a  “Guess Those Scribbles”  game. Instead of guessing what Katelyn drew you’re going to guess what she was trying to write in this photo:

What was Katelyn trying to write?

I’ll give you some choices:

1) Katelyn Mietzner

2) Katelyn and Madelyn

3)Ni Hao Kai-Lan

4) It’s K-Mart Smart

5) Katelyn and Mommy

Go!!

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