Christian Moms in Debt (and getting out!)

Do You Eat Out Too Often?

2010-09-19T11:53:00.000-07:00

I know we do. Especially during the soccer and lacrosse seasons, which are also big ballet seasons, so we find ourselves in a rush all of the time. Grabbing fast food along the way is so easy, but bad for your heart and your wallet. I have begun using the crockpot a lot more, starting it right after lunch before the afternoon gets crazy. There are a lot of great recipes you can hit for the crockpot. Try www.recipes.com!

Buying a Lot Less for Back to School This Year

2010-09-02T13:24:00.001-07:00

Given my husband's lack of a job, and the economy still a mess, I am buying considerably less this year in terms of school supplies, clothing and the like. I normally spend at least $500 on all of the above, but this year I am hoping to keep it under $300. No big clothing shopping sprees, for sure!

Buy the Basics First

2010-08-29T13:04:00.000-07:00

I got kind of caught up in the coupon game without being more strategic. I was so excited about all of the things I could get for 75% off and more that I spent more money on the "deals" than I did on the important basics this past month. Note to self: buy the basics first (bread, milk, meat, etc) and then use what is left over on the amazing deals, especially on toiletries, condiments, and the like. I have way too many toothpastes and bottles of ketchup right now! I am learning this game, and hope to have it down pat within a few months.

Encouraging our Husbands When They Are Down

2010-08-25T17:10:00.000-07:00

My husband, like many out there today, is dealing with unemployment. He looks so sad and tired tonight. He goes to a coffee shop everyday with his laptop and works on finding a job, sending out resumes, emails, and calls people he knows who might have leads. He confided yesterday how bad he feels about putting his family in this position, which of course isn't his fault, but he feels responsible. I just want to hug him and reassure him of our love for him, our faith in him and in God who has all things in His hands. Men need to work. Their self-esteem is so acutely tied to their jobs, and when they can't work, they struggle with the self-worth. My job as his wife is to build him up and remind him that God has a plan, and that his worth is in his identity in Christ, not in what he does.

Teaching Our Kids About Credit and Savings

2010-08-24T15:10:00.000-07:00

My parents didn't talk much at all with us about personal finance. I didn't have a great grasp of the importance of socking away money in savings every month for emergencies, or of the dangers of credit cards. I do now, unfortunately, but I do not want my kids to learn the hard way like I did. I think we should sit down and have a big heart to heart with each of them, just like we do about saving sex for marriage, to warn them away from debt. How have you helped your kids to be savers and debt-averse?

School Supplies: Stop Up Now!

2010-08-23T15:43:00.000-07:00

I have learned that stocking up on school supplies at Target, WalMart, Walgreens, and Rite Aid and other grocery stores, while there are coupons online to be had, combined with amazing deals is the way to go for big savings. Buy as much as you can and it will last all year, at far less than the amount the same things will cost later in the year! Office Max has some great deals as well! I need to get a graphing calculator for one of my middle schoolers and I see that they have some good ones for less than one hundred dollars right now with in store discounts and mail in rebates.

Six Months Worth of Emergency Savings is Now a Must

2010-08-22T16:56:00.000-07:00

Before it felt like that was a luxury. We had a little bit of savings here and there, but never felt that we could ever put away enough money to even have one month's salary in the bank. I realize now that we needed to start with a small goal and work up instead of just blowing off the bigger goal entirely. God has always provided, but we are in a pinch now and could really use that emergency fund!! Never again will be live off of everything he makes, but definitely less, by the grace of God, so we can save a whole lot more for unforeseen expenses!

How Has God Given You Greater Self-Control?

2010-08-21T07:43:00.000-07:00

I would love to hear how the Lord has moved in your life to give you victory over those small areas that used to give you great trouble in the areas of finances? Share your story!

I Got the Part-Time Job I Wanted

2010-08-20T15:39:00.000-07:00

A position at my daughter's ballet studio opened up. They needed a person to work in the new store, and the hours were at the same time as my daughter's dance lessons, so it is perfect for me! It pays only $8.00 an hour, and I will only work about 12 hours a week, but every little bit will help us with our goals to give and to save and to pay off debt! God is good! He knows what we need before we ask.

How Much Debt Do We Need to Pay Off?

2010-08-20T15:33:00.001-07:00

A lot. Let's just says it is in the tens of thousands on plastic. Then there is the car loan, the home equity loan, and the mortgage. Do I feel discouraged when we think about how much we owe? Yes, but I actively choose to dwell not on the "Giant" but on God's power through obedience, which takes the fear away. We are little "Davids" with a small bag of stones but I believe that God will honor our efforts to get out of debt and stay out of debt, and to give cheerfully. Sometimes you have to really develop a hatred of a certain sin before you are willing to change. I am willing to change. Repentance from the heart means that I need to rely on the Holy Spirit for self-control when I feel weak, for wisdom when I am confused, for humility when I want to take the reins myself instead of submitting to my husband and to God.

Do You Know About Groupon?

2010-08-20T15:10:00.000-07:00

We have Groupon here in the Virginia Beach/Norfolk area, where area businesses will offer a huge discount off of their services or dining on a particular day. There are some amazing deals to be had this way. Check them out!

Great Deals at Target!

2010-08-17T12:41:00.000-07:00

I was browsing through the children's department today at our local Target, and found a whole section of clothes, shorts and tanks, slashed to $1.75 each! These were not on the normal sale racks, but were where regularly priced clothing would be found. I bought some for next summer. You may want to see if your local Target is doing the same thing!

How Not to Shop

2010-08-15T06:24:00.000-07:00

In general, I need to leave the kids at home when I shop. I am too much of a softie when it comes to, "Mom can I have some gum?" or "Mom can I get (insert some junk food I don't normally buy)?" Yesterday I took my two youngest to get haircuts, and I forgot the cardinal rule before going anywhere: inform them ahead of time that you are not buying hair products. I thought of it, and then I didn't do it. So guess what? I return to pick them up and the 10 year old asks for the hair products that made her long, thick, sometimes frizzy hair become super-smooth. She wanted both of them, so I told her, only to stop the whining (bad move) that she could pick one. Well, that one was $26.00!!! I was using points I had earned for their haircuts, so I said yes, and I earned points toward future purchases by buying the little bottle of goo. If it weren't for that, I would have said no for sure. Still, I spent $26.00 I didn't need to spend because I was afraid to say no. Why? That is the question. I am learning to say no and being a planner not an impulsive spender. Sigh. I did tell her that from now on she has to spend her own allowance on any hair products! Thank you God for your grace when I mess up!

Hooked on Saving Money

2010-08-13T08:25:00.000-07:00

I am officially hooked on saving money, on everything! This includes using online coupon codes, online printable coupons, Groupon, Swagbucks, and everything else I can find to slash our grocery and clothing budgets. Now I need to work on saving money on haircuts! With four girls and I, the salon expenses are growing. I used Great Clips and Supercuts when they were little, but after some bad experiences, I decided to pay a little more and get better cuts. I do ask for Level 1 or 2 stylists who are cheaper than the Level 3 and 4s. Also, my salon has a family rewards program where each service gains points you can use toward future services.

When I think of our utility and cable bills, and cell phones too, I have a harder time cutting back on those costs. We get the minimum cable package, and our gas bill is pretty steady, as is our water bill. Our cell phone bill has grown quite a bit since we added three girls to the mix, and added unlimited texting to avoid a huge surprise. I can get rid of my extra $30 a month for my blackberry if I just got a regular phone. Just might do that! Verizon's packages are kind of limited as far as the price levels go, in that we only use so many minutes, far under our allowance, but if we drop down to the next level, our minutes are more than that maximum. Ugh! The phone companies know how to play the customer!

Our electricity use seems to keep growing as well, we think because of our large TV, our many recessed lights, and other electronics like computers. We use the energy saving bulbs in all of our lamps and bathroom fixtures, but it seems to make a small difference compared with simply turning things off.

I am reading Isaiah and Hosea a lot these days. So many good reminders of God's faithful love for his wayward children! He rewards repentance with restoration, not because we have earned it, but because, though we don't deserve it, He showers us with his grace through His son Jesus, who obeyed perfectly and purchased our redemption!

Panic, then Peace, then Panic, repeat

2010-08-12T06:19:00.000-07:00

My husband and I had a poignant conversation last night about his job loss and which direction to go from here. I can tell he is confused and scared too. I don't see my husband looking this way very often. When your "rock" in the family is shaken, it affects everyone. I love him so much and pray that God will give us clear direction as to whether we stay here, move, which kind of job industry to look in, etc. I keep going through an emotional cycle of faith, then fear, then peace, followed by panic. God is in control and He loves us but it is still challenging to trust.

Swagbucks

2010-08-11T08:46:00.000-07:00

I have just discovered Swagbucks, which is entirely free to sign up to receive great rewards towards gift cards. Just use their search engine and you accumulate rewards! Check them out at www.swagbucks.com!

Get Your Will Done!

2010-08-10T10:03:00.000-07:00

My husband and I just finished signing our new wills today at a lawyer's office. Don't put off getting a will done thinking you have years ahead of you. Your kids need the protection for their inheritance, which at this point, is mostly life insurance from us, but hopefully once we have paid off all of this debt, will be a lot more than that! You can get them done for about $500 dollars each usually or you can find cheaper deals out there through free legal services in your town.

Bouncing Checks Counts as Rock Bottom for Me

2010-08-09T18:36:00.000-07:00

Have you ever bounced a check? Embarrassing, right? Probably most of us who have bounced a check have done it accidentally, not intentionally. A deposit didn't hit at the expected time, or your husband took out more money than you were counting on or vice versa. I have had the unfortunate experience of both of those happening. But many of us have over draft protection, a link to a credit card or a savings account. That seems like the right thing to do, right?

Well, for me, no. You see, when you are addicted to spending, that link becomes another way of purchasing more than you can actually afford. For many years I used the overdraft protection linked to two credit cards to make up the difference between what we had in the bank and what I "needed" to buy. Guess what? I maxed out both of those cards. And they had high limits. Yep, pretty bad. So guess what happened next? I ended up with returned checks for the first time in many years. I didn't realized I had maxed out the credit card until after the returned checks appeared in our account. Very mortifying. I had not experienced that kind of embarrassment in many years.

So no more link to the credit cards or even to a savings account. My husband and I need to communicate about what is coming out of the checking accounts regularly, and I need to stop playing Russian roulette with deposits versus checks. Just one more hard lesson learned for this child of God. I was reading Oswald Chambers My Utmost for His Highest a few nights ago and the entry that day was about how God will not let us get away with even that one area of our lives that we will not surrender to Him. He will keep bringing us back to that one thing again and again until we deal with it. How true! He has been speaking to me for years about my terrible spending habits and I have "repented" many times but no real change followed. I am all about real change now. Rock bottom was bouncing checks two months in a row to my daughter's ballet studio. I felt so awful about it that I wrote them a letter of apology and promised to pay by auto draft from now on, and I included a donation to the studio. I do think it is important to make amends when you can.

My daily earnest prayer is, "God make me honest, transparent, and trustworthy so I can glorify You in EVERY area of my life!!"

My Daily Prayer: Make Me a Saver and a Giver

2010-08-08T17:56:00.000-07:00

I am learning to be a saver. Not that we have never saved, but I have never had the mentality of being a Saver. I have been a Spender all of my life, but also a Giver. I have never been as intentional about saving as I need to be. I am finally admitting that we have to change our lifestyle in order to pay off debt and to really save. Our giving has diminished over the years as our debt grew. I am not proud of this to say the least. We support many different missions and our church but not at the level that we should or could if we weren't hampered by so much debt. My prayer is that God would free us from our debts so we can give more and save more! Living by faith is not living by credit cards!!

Just Learning the Coupon Game

2010-08-08T17:40:00.000-07:00

I am a novice to using coupons fanatically. I have discovered the joys of getting FREE stuff at drug stores, grocery stores, and even in some retail stores by combining store coupons with manufacturers' coupons and a sale on the item. Recently I walked out of a Rite Aid having paid 95 cents for two hair products and something else. I am hooked. There are a lot of great couponing websites out there that do all the work for you of matching up the sales and the coupons. You just print out the list, find the coupon, and off you go to have lots of fun seeing how much money you DON'T have to spend! I wish I would have done this years ago, but better late than never! If we can slash our grocery bill in half we will be saving $500 a month!

The Weight of Debt

2010-08-08T05:51:00.000-07:00

Debt is a terrible thing, at least the kind that isn't a manageable mortgage. It weighs you down, saps your energy, keeps you awake at night. If we didn't know that we have an all powerful, Sovereign God that holds us in His hands, we would feel so completely lost. He forgives our sins, even our biggest mistakes, and delivers us from guilt and shame. Shame does nothing for us, nor does wallowing in guilt. No, problems are solved not by self-flagellation but by turning to the Savior, whose grace is unlimited. He has a plan to get us out of the mess, we just have to follow Him and be obedient. Keeping close to Him keeps us from our own lunacy.

Posting Again

2010-08-07T15:17:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted to this blog in a very long time, but with my husband's recent job loss, and our debt growing instead of decreasing, I decided it was time to start blogging again as a means of accountability. I have started to coupon in earnest, using many of the great websites out there that matchup coupons with the sales. I can see how addicting this can be. When I paid a mere .95 cents at Rite Aid for six items or so, I got hooked. I hope this blog will encourage your own transformation from a spender to a saver too!

Credit Card Rate Hikes

2009-10-27T17:52:00.000-07:00

We have a credit card that has a balance on it, but we are not using it, just paying it down. The interest rate has been 14.99%, not bad, though our lowest has a 5.9% rate. Last week, we received a notice that the credit card company was going to raise the rate to 29.99%! We could opt out if we wanted to, which meant agreeing to being unable to use the card again, and keeping the same interest rate as we pay down the balance. The other choice was to keep the card and pay the usurious new rate, which I couldn't stomach. We chose to opt out, which means we lost the $30,000 limit, most of which is unused, which may dampen our credit score, especially since it was a major card. I think that the reforms are hurting consumers as much as they are helping.

The good news is my change jar is getting quite full.

Don't Buy It if You Don't Use It!

2009-10-08T18:34:00.000-07:00

What I mean by that is that while trying to get the hang of being a "strategic shopper" combining coupons with sales to get stuff at a very low price, I discovered that I was purchasing a lot of grocery items because they were a good deal, even if I never purchased that item before. I have concluded that it is much better for me to buy the things we actually eat, than to scoop up every bargain. And I am able to shop at a military commissary, which, time and again, still beats Wal-Mart, Krogers, and Harris Teeter. So now I am trying to be a REALLY strategic shopper, letting certain "amazing deals" go and focusing on our basic grocery list, which actually does not include a lot of processed foods, as many of these "deals" seem to be full of them.

Learning the Hard Way: Buying Fish

2009-10-06T13:14:00.001-07:00

I really like to make sure my kids eat healthy, and that means getting Omega 3s into them as much as possible. About once a week, I buy fish, usually salmon, and they promptly devour it. This past week, however, the salmon was expensive, but the red snapper was cheaper. The red snapper came as a whole fish, head and fins and all. I ordered two pounds of it, like I do with the salmon. What I didn't factor in was how much of these big fish was actually edible. My husband didn't know how to fillet them, so we had a neighbor come over who is a fish-fanatic, and he did the filleting. What was left when he was done was four VERY small fillets, to feed six of us! That cost me $18.00!!! I felt pretty stupid, though my husband was gracious. Lesson: buy fish that is already prepared so you get the most for your money!