Last April, Kathy and I performed a comprehensive review of our finances. We discovered that we had allowed our consumer debt to slowly increase, month after month, to the point that we owed nearly $20,000 on various credit cards. Although we own both of our aging vehicles ‘free and clear’, we had made a practice of living above our means on a monthly basis. In just a few years of self-indulgence, we grew our indebtedness into a substantial millstone, hanging around our necks.

Our debt seemed mountain high.

“We’ve got to do something,” Kathy implored me.

My wife is the more fiscally-conservative in our marriage. Debt bothers her more than it does me, and (although she can spend some serious money at a Target sale quicker than you can say “50% off”) she inherited many good financial habits from her thrifty parents.

Although I also am blessed with parents who are frugal, money has sometimes come easily to me, and so I can be a little cavalier about it. “Easy come, easy go,” I sometimes think. Blessed with the gift of generosity, I don’t always draw a clear distinction between giving to others and giving to myself.

Over the past ten months, we have seen the hand of the Lord time and time again in the area of finances. In spite of unexpected expenses and repairs, we’ve made steady progress on reducing our indebtedness. Each time that we have faced a hurdle in expenses, God has provided a way to overcome that difficulty without going further into debt.

Finally, the day arrived: our tax refund was deposited into our account, and we were able to pay off the last of the remaining debt.

Our debt is finally gone, after eleven months of God’s goodness!

As soon as I woke up, I fired up my computer to check to see if the promised deposit was there. “Did the money arrive?” Kathy asked, before I had finished logging in.

“I hope so … hold on … YES!” I checked again, just to be sure.

We gathered the kids and I let Kathy push the ‘Continue’ button on the funds transfer. “As of this moment, we don’t owe anyone anything except for mortgage debt,” I announced. Technically, I was wrong, since we still have another kind of debt:

Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. — Romans 13:8

Kathy and the kids trundled off to co-op, but I found my mind circling back to this startling truth: we don’t have any more debt hanging over us! It felt strange, as it does when you’re in college and your last paper is turned in and your last final is complete, and Summer Break has begun.

My mind turned to consider the parable of the lost coin. In Luke 15, Jesus tells a story about a woman who loses a coin, and then finds it again:

Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

We thought about having a party, and inviting all the people we know, to rejoice with us. Not to boast, but simply to celebrate. It wouldn’t be a fancy party (since we’re staying on a budget), but it might be an opportunity to encourage others. “If Tim and Kathy could do it,” people might say to themselves, “then surely anyone can get out of debt.”

Not our actual party. A Valentine’s Day tea party.

So we’re having a party.

‘Open House’ format, from 4 pm to 8 pm on Saturday, March 7th. Games, fellowship, food and fun.

If you read this blog and know where we live, consider yourself invited. Come, rejoice with us!

We won’t make you wear the party hat unless it’s your birthday.

Please bring something tasty to share, and also write down (on a 4 x 6 card or something) an idea you have used to help save money (or avoid spending it altogether). We’ll compile the ideas, print ‘em out and make them available to the contributors, sort of like compiling a stewardship cookbook.

A time to celebrate!

Tim

Last night we went to the YMCA to pick up our Swim Team kids. We arrived early so that we could sneak in a workout (it’s been almost two weeks since I was able to find the time). After about 20 minutes, I was ready to quit.

“What time is it?”, I gasped to Kathy on the next machine to my left.

“Seven twenty-four,” she replied. “I’ll bet you hoped it was seven forty-four.” The kids are done with Swim Team practice around 7:45 on Fridays.

I was disappointed at how quickly I had fallen out of ’shape’, in terms of exercise stamina. There are, unfortunately, some parallels in the area of financial stewardship.

We’ve had a couple of difficult months, in terms of record-keeping. Neither of us seems to have much passion for writing down every little expenditure, and they seem to get away from us in only a few days. When we got home from the YMCA, Kathy whipped out the laptop and we attempted to wrestle the month of January into submission.

Some months, you have to use excessive force.

First she went through all the receipts, and then I dug up a few more I’d been hoarding. Then we did reconstructive surgery on the month, based upon records from various financial institution. I dusted off my accusatory drone: “On the 17th, someone went to Albertsons and spent $54.23.”

When the dust settled, we had a number of budget category overages, including:

• a trip to Oregon for the Prayer Conference
• very high utility bills (water and natural gas)
• some unexpected water line repair work
• an expensive heating duct diagnostic visit
• new running shoes for both Tim and Kathy

Happily, this was a three-paycheck month, plus I received a small bonus from my company, and I was finally paid for some side work that I did, so there was a lot of ’slush money’ available. We were able to close the month out and make significant progress toward paying down our debt, so that only 15% remains of what we owed on April 1st of last year.

We’re down to 15%, after 10 months on the budget.

We were cheered to see the progress, and to feel that we can see the end of the tunnel, with regard to becoming debt free (except for house debt). We have every expectation of paying it all off by the time we get our tax refund (which, in a spurt of financial ambition, I filed last night).

God has been very good to us over the past 10 months, allowing us every advantage in paying off our foolish debt, and graciously encouraging us at every turn. We are so thankful to Him for His provision for our family, and for the strength and determination He has given us in exercising our flabby stewardship muscles.

Tim

It turns out there’s more to taking artistic pictures of living rooms and hallways than just snapping the camera.

This casual corner is the dining room. I must admit I LOVE the pink wall. A splash of COLOR.

First you have to clear away the clutter, anything that indicates you actually live in your house.

Thankfully I have helpers for that kind of work.

Notice Sarah working hard to clean up the hallway.

Then there is the required posing and search for proper lighting.

“Hey, Sarah, casually stand in front of the door stop and pose again, will ya.”

What kind of angles work best in long rectangular rooms? How do you take natural looking pictures of a room with lots of windows without the light from those windows throwing your, um, lighting off?

All in all, I have a new appreciation for the gorgeous pictures you find in magazines on a regular basis. I never did get a satisfactory photo of the living room. Of course, I’m still on the look out for some things to put on the walls. The room isn’t quite finished.

My decorating money is about gone, however, so I’ll be scrimping and saving for the last few things.

When all else fails, throw in some pictures of cute kids playing at the park.

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the new blinds and curtains in the living/dining room. We’ve lived here four years, that seems long enough to wait before deciding on drapery. I see why we waited, decorating is expensive!!

Thank you for all your hard work, Dad, I couldn’t have done it without you!

Kathy

As our budgeting efforts rage on, we’ve become less excited about our monthly progress — I guess we’re easily bored, or something. But there’s nothing particularly boring about reducing our debt, so I provide this brief update.

Thanks to God’s continuing provision for us, we’ve been able to reduce our debt to 35% of its April 1, 2008 level.

Debt reduction, as of 1 November 2008, after 7 months budgeting.

Mostly, we’ve continued earlier efforts to record and limit expenditures. I must, however, admit that some use of credit has crept back in. We allowed ourselves to continue to use our Amazon Visa card for purchases on Amazon, and we have been using our Costco credit line to fund purchases at that store. Originally, I was in the habit of firing off a payment from our checking account each time we used either of those cards, but lately I have become lazy about that.

About a week ago I received a bill in the mail from the Costco credit card people for more than $600 — I had no idea I had let that account grow so large, so quickly! If it weren’t for a quarterly bonus from my employer, I’d be in the sorry situation of reporting an increase in debt.

Obviously, we need to either (a) be exceedingly diligent in paying those bills immediately, on the same day of purchase, or (b) to really cut out the credit card usage entirely, as proper Ramsey groupies should.

Savings = the excess of income over consumption expenditures —often used in plural

One happy thing happened recently: we’ve started to use the money we actually saved for Christmas to snap up bargains and gifts of opportunity. We’ve been putting money aside ever since we started our budget, so we wouldn’t be surprised when Christmas came. (What? It’s in December, again?) It has been such fun to buy presents that we can afford!

Tim

Well, it’s several days into October now, and we’ve not posted our September budget blog. Sometimes it seemed that the end of the month would never come. It started so well; vacationing with Kathy’s folks in Texas, many of our grocery and household expenses were covered for the first 9 days of the month. You’d think that would give us enough of a buffer to coast easily to the 30th.

If only our money would last as long as this balloon.

Nope. We came to the 30th with $1.15 in Groceries, and a negative in Households. Both Kathy and I were low on our Unaccountable’ funds. Everything seems to cost so much, and we find it very hard to continue to say ‘no’ to the things we want.

Of course, in the current economic climate, we’re very glad that we have reduced our debt as far as we have. I would be rather frightened if we were still as deeply in debt as we were back in April.

I’m not very good at managing our finances, truth be told. Over the years, responsibility for paying the bills has shuttled back and forth between Kathy and I – I’ve been ‘fired’ at least twice. Kathy is more reliable at recording financial transactions, and she seems to derive some satisfaction from it.

Does coloring count as school?

On the other hand, I seem to do better than she does at shrugging off the burden of debt, and managing the larger financial transactions. Kathy seems to be more easily oppressed and discouraged by debt than I am, so I have generally managed ‘strategic’ financial details while she sticks to ‘tactical’ matters. We rarely pay more than 2% or 3% interest (including transfer fees) on the debt we carry, because I learned to play the shell game with the credit card companies, moving money around from card to card as the ‘promotional offers’ allow.

Sometimes I become hostile, viewing each bill as a personal attack, and have occasionally been quoted, referring to creditors: “they’re lucky if they ever get their money!”.

Joshua knows to hide when bill hostility arises.

My bark is worse than my bite; I really don’t intend to default on my bills. Still, it is not unusual for me to wait until the last possible moment before paying a bill that is due, riding the grace period to its limit. Sometimes this ‘brinksmanship’ bites me in the form of late fees or other penalties.

This month we were overdrawn in one of our checking accounts, because I wasn’t aware of a couple of checks that Kathy had written. Happily, my bank provides ‘overdraft protection’ and ‘loaned’ me $300 from a credit card that has somehow been associated with my bank account. It is a mixed blessing: the checks didn’t bounce, but they charged me $10 for the privilege of the ‘loan’, and I’m sure they’ll gleefully collect usurious interest on the $300, even if I repay it quickly.

I feel vaguely sullied by the use of this ‘protection’ on my behalf – I didn’t really want to use credit like that. It is my own fault – wanting to make more progress against our debt, I paid out a little more of our ‘cushion’ than I could afford to. We keep our emergency funds (and our savings for Christmas and a new roof) in another bank – perhaps I should link the two so I’m not charged overdraft ‘protection’ fees. But we like keeping the money separate – it helps us to pretend that we won’t dip into it for day-to-day expenses.

David and Sarah are good companions.

It was a good month for debt repayment, though – we’re down to less than 40% of our debt, thanks to my overly-enthusiastic payments. We’ve now reached the six month mark, which was how long Kathy and I agreed, originally, to submit to this discipline of budgeting. As much as I yearn for the days of unregulated spending, I think the nation’s financial markets are painting a vivid picture of the long-term payoff for that kind of behavior. We’ve pledged to continue budgeting at least long enough to get out of debt, which we hope will happen sometime between now and the end of March, 2009.

Praise God our trust is in Him!

Tim