Carmen in Chehalis

What fantastic support from everyone, especially your brother and Dad. Wow! Take up his offer to help teach you to do the roof yourself!

Ronnica is spot on when she says, no point delaying till after the seemingly urgent expenses, because there will ALWAYS be things like this. That, my friends, is life.

Are you sure you ‘need’ $600 worth of homeschooling stuff this summer? Can you not use free online resources, unit studies made up by you and Kathy or a literature-based curriculum where you borrow from the library everything you need? Can you not swap resources you already have with someone else locally? Just for this year? Of course, you want those resources to be able to home-school the way you’d like, but if you don’t have the money, and you don’t, then you need to look into other ways to home-educate, don’t you?

Did you read all the verses in the Bible about money yet? Did you accept God’s opinion about debt yet? Debt ties you to a master who is not God. Debt prevents you from serving Him wholeheartedly. What is God’s will for your life? Is it ease, comfort, treats? Or perhaps it’s sacrifice, downsizing, taking joy in having and needing less.

Oh dear, I’d better stop. I’m worrying about sounding ‘holier than thou’ again. I’m sooooo not that. {g} Struggling right along with you, maybe a step or two further down the track, hacking away with the machete.

We have been in your boat. We started there. By God’s grace…well what worked for us was selling our home and going into the chaplaincy. ::snort::

Currently, we have to do some tweaking. This is basically my fault. When we moved, then Mike deployed….I didn’t adjust the budget quick enough….Mike was gone and didn’t see what was going on. Yes, he’s been back a year and we are JUST getting it all ironed out…..its tough to work on things like this….but it is good. Our big question continues to be “giving”. This is an area we are simply going to have to pray through. It can’t be “wise” to have no retirement and have given it all away….but we come from long lines of givers and God has ALWAYS provided for our parents….though we see now that it is through OUR paycheck that God is taking care of our folks’ retirment. It’s been a wake up call for us….we need to honor our parents, continue to give, provide for our children….and save for the future.

All that to say that giving easy answers is difficult. We loved Ramsey’s principles but found we had to adjut for our reality. WE need considerably more for things like food, homeschooling and emergency fund than his budget allowed….but we need less for things like medical. I’ll be praying for you as you read, ponder, pray and “do something”. I sort of think the answers for each family will be a bit different than they are for other families.

Having the $1000 emergency fund is HUGE. It feels like such an accomplishment, and then it gives such assurance as well.

We have done all sorts of things… selling stuff, picking up odd jobs, selling plasma, etc. We eat cheap meals, we wash clothes in cold water, etc., etc.

I bet you BOTH have skills other people would love to pay you for… Tim with computer stuff, Kathy with kid stuff. I did a post similar to this and got several really good ideas. It was in November and called Money, Money, Money.

God continues to give us our daily bread and more. He is even in the business of roofing, I hear.

Love and prayers!

One place we’ve really cut back- and I don’t like it but it helps- is the kids’ clothes. I wish they looked cuter and more trendy. I wish they had church shoes. This year three of my girls don’t even own a dress or skirt. But it doesn’t seem to have impacted their life greatly.

I bet it is WAY cheaper to live in Indiana.

Take your dad up on his offer and fix the roof yourself or look into a repair that will defer the cost until next year. $14,000 seems very high for a new roof.

Take a basic car maintenance course at your local community college. You can save a ton on simple car repairs. Brakes are not hard to change. Barter with someone from church for computer services in exchange for the brake repair.

While new homeschool material is great, we have gone years without buying much. We manage with what we have, use the library and the internet a ton. It is amazing what you can find free or for little cost. Hit the used curriculum sales that homeschool groups hold. If you must buy, search the used book sites or check with the SHS list. Maybe someone has what you need at a lower cost. Can you sell some of the homeschool material you aren’t using or don’t need to offset the cost?

Look carefully at what you have around your home. Is there anything you can sell. Craigslist is a great place to sell items. This could bring in cash, plus help you declutter and free yourself of some of your material things. With Tim working from home regularly, do you need two cars?

I look forward to following your progress.

I applaud you for taking this on. What a blessing to your family this is now and for the future. It will also be a lesson to your children on handling the blessings that God has given us.

Okay, on to the expenditures…

Will insurance pay for the roof? Was it damaged? I also agree that that is just too much money to spend. We replaced the roof on the house we just left and for the 2000sq ft was around $6,000 for the materials. Then we had some friends come over and help us reroof it. We fed them and provided drinks. Is that an option for you? Do you know at least one person that knows how to roof?

The Dentist! UGH.. we are going through that now. 1 dd has braces now and two more are going to need them in the next three years. We took the ‘loan’-payment plan really-through the office and pay extra when we can. My dental problems are waiting until this summer when we have saved for it. For now, my temporary filling has fallen out. I need a post put in the tooth and it is going to cost at least $600. It can wait a little longer.

It is soo hard to wait on things that we need. You just have to ask yourself, do I want to keep living the way that I am? OR do you want the freedom of knowing that you owe no man and you are free from the hold money can have on you?

It is a process. You just have to keep taking the steps in the right direction and keep trying.

Research, ask questions, do it as a family. Get the kids involved in saving the money. Make it a goal to cut out one frivalous thing this month and see how much money you can save!

We did that last summer and we saved $2000 in just two months just by not going to the grocery store more than once a week and not eating out. We eat out now, just once a week.

Anyway, you have some really great advice. Just keep trying and praying and seeking God. He will answer you.

This is what we have done.
1. Prioritize- decide which things are necessary for our family’s health and well being.

2. Pray- Ask God to show us His way and His timing on providing the things our family needs.

3. Sell- Get rid of all the things in your life that are cluttering it up. Turn the things you no longer use or need into money. I resell the kid’s clothes that no longer work to buy shoes at the same resell shop. Hey, it works.

4. Commit to a plan and stay with it for a set amount of time and then reevaluate. For us this is about every 3 months. I get really freaked out if I think something is forever- I loose motivation and have a hard time sticking to it.

5. Ask God for your “daily” bread- it’s the little things that add up. We do our best to be frugal and see God even bringing more and more savings our way when we ask Him. He does give good gifts- like milk on sale for $.99 and a grant for my husband this summer. These things are precious to us because we know they are from the Lord’s hand. What a faith builder!!

6. We work more as opportunities arise- we see this extra income as God’s provision as well. I might get called in to work for time and a half or my husband is offered a job helping someone move….

Paying off debt and living within our means is so much more than saying “No” to everything we want. It is saying “yes” to what God gives freely and having room to breathe and live simply in this crazy world!

Blessing to you and your family.