February Round Up!!! It's a good one!

     At the risk of every one of these month ending round up blogs sounding the same, I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S ALREADY MARCH TOMORROW!!!  Seriously.  We have been at this for two whole months!  I am so excited to share with you about our month!!  Let's dive in and see how we progressed.
     If you recall last month (or maybe you don't...it's really not a big deal) we didn't meet our goal for the amount that we would like to pay each month toward our debt.  Life happened.  We dusted off our initial disappointment and moved on knowing that God is leading this and we are just following along.  During the month of January K was able to pick up a lot of overtime.  A LOT.  I averaged out his hours and he ended up working 80 hours/week last month.  That is TWO full time jobs.  That guy is insane.  I have never been more thankful for his job and the fact that he LOVES it.  Especially since he is spending so much time there this year!  haha!  Let me tell you, if we had tried to do this three years ago we would have failed...miserably I might add.  We wouldn't have known how to stay connected when he is basically at work for two thirds of the time and home for one third.  God's timing is always perfect.
     Anyway, because of the perfect storm of K working his tushie off coupled with a light bill month, meaning we have a few bills that come every other month or quarterly and this month was one of only two times this year that all of those bills weren't due, (Again, God's timing is perfect) we were able to pay off our American Express in FULL.  IN FREAKING FULL.  SO GOOD!!!  We also have what we call a "debt jar."  That is everything extra cash-wise that comes in goes into that jar.  For example, my work money, a reimbursement check from K's work for a class, any extra money left over from our cash budgets all get tossed into the jar.  We had two months worth of money in there because I forgot to deposit it last month (And maybe I was just holding onto it because I am lame) so yesterday I was able to take that money and make a payment for $211.77 to the principle on my car.  Woohoo!  Here's how the numbers look for us now after February:

• New Debt Total: $15, 496.20!
• Amount paid off since we started: $6, 910.90!!!!
• Amount paid off since last month: $5, 819.01!!!!  

    I love seeing how God is providing work for K and all he has to do is say yes.  Working 80 hours/week is no joke, especially since most of that time he doesn't get much sleep working in one of the busier houses in the fire district.  I am so thankful for the convictions and passion that God has put into both of our hearts for this year and years to come.  We are learning so much.  We were talking the other night and started wondering what we would have done with extra money like we had this month if God hadn't called us to this this year.  We had no idea.  We would have saved some for sure, but who knows what else we would have spent that money on.  Nothing important enough for me to think of right now!  We definitely wouldn't have spent every last penny we could getting rid of our debt, I can tell you that.
     So that is where we stand this month.  It was a really good month!  Months like this will balance out the ones where we aren't able to pay off as much.  Please remind me of that when I am whining about one of those times.  :)  Thank you in advance!!

Have a great weekend friends!

Transforming to Humility

         Recently I had to come to a hard realization...I am prideful.  Not the kind of prideful that you are thinking about.  I don't walk around telling everyone how awesome and amazing I am (at least not all the time..haha!) and I don't think I am better than anyone else.  I know that I am saved by grace and grace alone...not by anything of my own doing.  This kind of pride is the sneaky kind.  

     I have had some amazing friends offer me yarn and paint among other things because they know what we're doing this year and that those things aren't in our budget.  What was weird for me was noticing right after they offered me these things I had a feeling that I didn't deserve it.  It didn't last very long and I was excited to receive these things, but I couldn't shake that initial feeling that came over me.  I prayed about it and came to the realization that I didn't feel like I deserved those things because we do have money.  K actually makes good money in his job...we are not struggling to put food on the table.  It just so happens that all of our extra money is going to pay off debt that we created.  My pridefulness was in my thinking that God didn't need to bless us with these things because we didn't deserve it.  We created this mess...you don't need to bless us...just let us dig ourselves out of it God.  We've got this...no worries God.  You've got so many other things to deal with.  See??  SNEAKY!   The amazing thing is that God knows we created this mess...but he doesn't care.  

     God wants to bless us through this mess we created.  He doesn't want the enemy to try to take those acts of kindness from friends and discredit them by turning them into acts of pity.  God showed me that our friends aren't offering these things because they pity us...quite the opposite actually.  They are offering us these things because they are 100% behind what we are doing this year and that is how they are showing us their support or cheering us on.  Take that Satan!  It's been such a freeing thing to realize and takes me off the defensive if someone offers us something.  So good.  I love this journey.  Want to hear the verse that the Lord led me to?  It's pretty amazing...I will answer for you.  You want to hear it.  Proverbs 11:2 says "When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom."  MIND. BLOWN.  How true is that!?!?  How is it that I have read through Proverbs at least four times and never had this verse pretty much yell in my face from the page.  I love those moments when God uses his word to slap you upside the face with wisdom.  Thanks God!  

     Here is a picture of my "new" red door.  Isn't it FREAKING AWESOME!?  I am so glad I didn't let that sneaky pride take over or I would still have a plain boring door.  It's the little things, you know? :)