Saturday, February 1, 2014

January Round Up!!!

I CAN NOT BELIEVE IT'S ALREADY FEBRUARY!!!!!!!!!  So crazy, right!??!?  Ok. So we are one month down on our mission to get debt free in one year.  We feel like God has called us to not spend anything extra at all for the year and we have a goal to put anywhere from $1500-$1900 toward our debt every month.  Yes we realize that is a lot of money, but we serve a big God who is bigger than any amount.  I have to remind myself of that fact almost daily. So how did we do last month?  Let's take a look.....
     On January 3rd, our debt total was $22,407.10.  That included our three credit cards, two of which have our HVAC system spread out between them and the rest is my car loan.  When we got our AMEX bill there were two items that hadn't posted when I paid the bills last and I immediately got discouraged.  I felt like our total wasn't going to budge.  Well this is just a little lesson for you all in my math logic (or lack thereof).  I added up all of our new totals and as of right now our total is $21, 315.21!  Down by almost 1100 dollars!!!!!  Way more than I was expecting.  Numbers just don't compute in my head.
     Major success for the month-really not buying a single thing that wasn't a necessity!  I feel like I have more confidence going into the next month knowing that we were able to do this month with it's 31 days.  Take that January!!!  February and it's 28 days should be a breeze!!  I've also felt a lot of freedom in going out knowing that I can't spend money.  That is the complete opposite of what I thought would happen.  I thought that I would loathe going out and want every single thing I saw.  While I have had my moments, for the most part I feel like I have been released from the stress of wondering where in the budget I would pull the money I was spending from.  I love it.  Also, balancing our checkbook has been SO FREAKING EASY.  We've used our debit card all of twice last month??  So nuts.
     Major fail for the month was our food budget.  I way underestimated what we would need for food without having a restaurant budget.  We didn't go out a ton before, but we had about $150 for restaurants which has been cut to about $20.  I definitely didn't budget enough for a family of five to eat almost every single meal at home!  We went to In N Out once last month when K was working and it cost me $10.  We're just awesome like that (and I had one child who preferred soup at home instead so we were really only feeding three people :)).  We also had a few other expenses, both expected and not, that kept us from meeting our goal.  Oh well, that's life.  $800 in dental bills for the kids. Ouch.  That one hurt.  $285 to get our dogs fixed.  Better than a litter of puppies, right?  Praise God that we had the cash to cover all of those expenses!
     Well, that is how our January went.  We are praying for God to continue to lead us through this year and teach us what He wants us to learn.  Still learning to live in the now and just be still. Not my forte, but I'm getting better at it. ;)
     Thanks for reading!!

6 comments:

  1. I say 1100 is pretty good considering the dentist and vet...if you didn't have those yiu would have met it. But like you said...that's life! God can redeem you this month. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am loving following your journey already. I know it will be an encouragement and inspiration to many. The biggest victory is not in the result, but in the journey itself. The faith to carry out what God has called you to, despite how difficult and impossible it seems is the victory.

    Keep up the great work and the blogging! You and Kris are world changers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Scott!!! That is some wisdom right there. The journey is the victory. I love it. So good!

      Delete
  3. BE STILL!! I try to say that to myself all the time! I just might get it tattooed backwards on my forehead haha you guys are really doing it!! And its only February! Woot woot we got our envelop system down now I'm so proud were chopping away little by little it feels good: D GOD is doing big things this year so proud of you <3

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Sister! The envelope system is HUGE for us!!!! We live by it. :)

      Delete