Money Monday: March 7

Well, that was a fun week. Um, NOT!

Many, many things we read and heard this week reinforced what we were discussing last week and reading about this week. God is so good to keep giving us this information in so many forms.

Again, we spent time working with the Navigating Your Finances God's Way, Frank and I got to the dreaded D-word. No! not that one - the other one: DEBT.

Our homework this week was to memorize the scripture (Prov 22:7 - The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender), and work the practical exercises. And what fun exercises they were.

We studied and worked the Compass Map, worked through the Bible verses and questions for the week, and best of all (yes, that was written with major sarcasm) made the List of Debts.

The Compass Map basically is the long-term plan to become financially healthy. No debt, have savings, retirement, a healthy God-ly way of looking at money. And that was good! We actually have accomplished the first step: Emergency Fund, using a Budget and Giving. Nice. Felt good to know we at least were starting out on the right road.

And then we got to the next piece of the homework, the debt list. That was really not pretty. But, now we know exactly how much we owe and to whom. And as much as we would love to blame all the debt on a downturn of the economy for the business, the main reason for the debt is our thinking the economy was going to keep going up and spending like we were going to keep making lots of money.

And our discussion might not have been as illuminating as the previous ones but this is good too. I am thinking this is because Frank and I have finally gotten to the point where God is first in the financial decisions and we are not needing as many 2x4's from our friends that we had needed the past few weeks! But, the discussion was good and I still wouldn't miss this part for anything!

some big takeaways from this week.....

1. With all this debt, we are definitely slaves to it. There was much wondering about what opportunities we lost due to that debt.
2. We, especially as a self-employed couple, have to remember to save for the future and we cannot spend now thinking we will have the income to cover it when the bills come due.
3. We need to continue to focus on the NEEDS and not WANTS.
4. PRAY - yeah, surprised that is on the list of what I learned. BUT, we need reminders that the Lord will multiply and bless our work when it is done in faith. We cannot expect to sit on the couch and pray God will drop buckets of money on us (that would be nice, just sayin'), but God will bless our efforts when we use our time and talent to continue to work toward the goal of being financially free. (think loaves and fishes)
5. We need to be content with the gifts we have. Let's face it, we have a lot: each other, 6 great children, a home, food, warmth, clothing and even a couple cars to make sure we can get to all the places we go. We have way more than some people and yet, we have struggled with the 'I WANT MORE' syndrome. That needs to get kicked to the curb right quick and CONTENT needs to take up a permanent place here.

Because of stuff happening on the schedules - we are not meeting with our friends next week; however, I do think Frank and I might have some stuff to share here anyway next week. 

This coming week, we are to work on financial honesty and counsel and continue with our spending tracking and debt snowball. We shall see how this week goes.