Going out with a bang!

"The borrower is slave to the lender" Proverbs 22:7

We have some good news! Since we received our January income payment a day early this year, we paid our bills a day earlier than usual, as well! That always feels good. Chris went out to do some errands and also stopped by the library to pay his library debt off. 

We had budgeted $385 for his debt because when we first heard about it, it was somewhere around the $300 mark, or so we thought. Well, as it turns out, we remembered incorrectly and it's a blessing in our favour! The total owed on his library account was only $138! 

That bill is DONE! Here we thought there would only be one bill paid off in 2016... (my 2015 taxes -- the only time I've ever been late with taxes in my whole life) but we also got this other bill done with! Yay! Our first happy dance in this journey!

The next bill in our list will be the credit card....groans.... I cannot wait until this one is done! We have a ways to go but we'll get there! 

On another note, we tried inputting our bill payments into the Dave Ramsey created app "EveryDollar" that I mentioned in my last post but I didn't like certain things about the app. Chris will be designing a Google Docs spreadsheet to our liking instead. (He's working on that currently I type)

It just didn't flow nicely... I tried to input some information and it told me I was $50.90 over budget, but I knew I wasn't... I struggled through trying to fix the issue to no avail. (We actually had an extra $100 to add to our budget thanks to a Christmas gift from family and this input into our income threw everything out of whack and initially told me we were $75 over budget... So strange...!)

Anyway, once the new spreadsheet is finished I'll kinda give you a glance at it so you can have an idea of how things will work, but that will be later in the month.

The last thing we went over for our budgeting starting in the new year was something known in the budgeting community as "Sinking Funds". Chris & Jackie from "GazelleInTents" explain these funds better than I ever could so here's a link to that explanation, if you're curious: Sinking Funds | How to Get Started. It's an old video of theirs, but a good explanation. With that being said, Chris and I have started three sinking funds of our own. Firstly my chiropractor's deposit that will be due in April, secondly the accountants fees will need to pay also in April once taxes are filed (because my taxes are so complicated it usually takes two really good accountants to figure it all out) and thirdly for Chris' driving lessons/licensing fees to make another step towards his full G license.

I have found the best way to stay on track with budgeting is to try your best to account for every expense you already know is going to be coming up so you're not scrambling to find the money for whatever expense you are faced with. For example, we know we'll have to file our taxes in April and we know we'll have to pay the accountant for their hard work and dedication so why not put that money aside already so there is no worry or argument about where that money comes from. The less we have to use our emergency fund to cover the gaps for things that can be planned, the more we realize those type of expenses are not actually emergencies.

There are so many people dreading 2017 right now, I'm seeing social media inundated with all those posts, but what I'm also seeing is a lot of people in the budgeting community excited about the goals and progress they'll continue to make in 2017 to become debt-free. That's what I'm focusing on. We can do this and we will do this... 

One final thought I leave you with today; if you have sat down with your budget, crunched the numbers and put it down on paper, have you budgeted every dollar of your income? Is there $50 or $250 that just sits in your chequing account that you've privately classified as "just in case" money? If so, re-calculate your budget and give every single dollar a name and place in your budget. If your "just in case" money stays in your chequing account you'll spend it. Seriously, it's too tempting to just sit there. You know you'll buy more groceries, or pop over to your favorite Christian book store to see the "Boxing Week Sale" prices that your email pop showed you just this morning, or maybe you'll eat out three times this month instead of your allotted two already planned. Whatever the reason, whatever the excuse you'll spend that money. I know this because we're the same way. 

As a result now, we budget everything. Every last dollar, heck every last penny is given a name, a home, an assigned spot and this way we know we've told our money where to go!

EveryDollar App

On Christmas Eve some lovely friends took us out to dinner and we had a great time, I must say. Although, it was at dinner I found out that Chris had used our credit card that very morning to make a Tim Horton's purchase. gasp I know! I was surprised, too!

Since then, we did talk about it and we recognize that in order to get out of debt we just cannot use that credit card. We have to pretend like it doesn't exist. So, we took our cards and put them away in a sealed envelope. They're in hiding and until they're paid off, that's where they're gonna stay!

Dave Ramsey would tell us to cut them up and never use them again. I'm not willing to go that far... in fact our own financial advisor said to keep them open and the credit limits where they are as they can be used with intentional money-already-down purchases for maintaining my credit score.

Moving on from that, we did decide to make a change in how we budget by trying out Dave Ramsey's " EveryDollar "application. You can certainly use it on your smart phone but since we're home 99% of the time and we don't use data on our phones -- just wifi -- we'll be logging in through our laptops.

I love that the app is free, looks very pretty and seems fairly easy to use. Now typically we've been recording purchases via Excel spreadsheet, but I don't like that only Chris can see the spreadsheet and I like more detail in my budgeting info. So, for example, I wanted to know how much we spent on just food for groceries and not everything and we didn't have that info available to us. He had it all clumped together as one big total for food, toiletries, household stuff, kitty litter, etc. Yes, he could separate it all into categories for me but still... it wouldn't be an easy access thing for both of us. With EveryDollar we can both log it, add transactions, make budgeting changes, see sinking funds (will explain these in another post) and everything else equally and both have control of the budgeting.

If we don't end up liking the app, we'll let you know, but I want to give it a fair shot for January and kinda go from there. I'm more of a pencil and paper kinda girl, but Chris likes his spreadsheets, so this option with DR's app might be a happy medium for us both.

Right now as I look at our budget for January we are putting 48% of our budget towards debt... yup... that's pretty scary when you think about it -- and embarrassing -- but if you don't face your faults and sinful ways how do you expect to change 'em? I encourage you to do the same. You can do this and if you want a little coaching and encouragement just email me! Seriously, no judgment here on my part. I'm so passionate about budgeting that I eat, sleep and drink the subject everyday. LOVE IT!

Also,what's even more exciting it when I was doing some quick calculations on my calculator in bed two nights ago (yes I do a lot of number crunching when I can't sleep) I found a way for us to pay off our debt two months faster than originally planned! I explained it to Chris, yesterday morning, and when he realized where I was going with it, he said, "We can actually pay it off even faster!" It was awesome to hear his input and he was right, we'll actually be 2.5 months ahead once we get the debt snowball rolling. My gut tells me we will be able to pay off FOUR of our debts before the end of 2017! Whoo-hoo! That's gonna be huge! Oh, you guys are just gonna have to get up and do the happy dances with us at the end of each debt pay off! grins

Exciting stuff coming up guys and Chris and I will begin to show you in a little more detail what budgeting this new way  looks like in a few days -- once the new year starts, so stay tuned for that!

We love you guys and I hope this gives you some food for thought about your own financial fitness. I hope you're all looking forward to a fresh budget start in January! Shake off that old fear of facing your debt and put on the armor of God because we're going to fight this battle with you -- and with God on our side!

Early Christmas Presents

We've have two pieces of good news! Whoo-hoo!

First off, Chris and I now have $345 saved up in the Emergency Fund! Praise The Lord! We received a cheque from our health and dental insurance provider for $183 so that has gone towards the growing emergency fund.

Also, we've made a slight change to Dave Ramsey's Baby Step #1. Instead of saving $1,000 for the emergency fund we will only be saving $500. Why, you ask? Honestly I'm going crazy with the idea that we won't be putting money towards our debt for three months if we continue to try and save $1,000 first. I just can't do that... I can't stop our momentum for that long! Furthermore, we don't really need such a big emergency fund. Unlike most people, we don't have a lot of big things that could go wrong in our life. We rent our apartment, all utilities are included in our rent, and if anything goes wrong we make a call and they fix it. (Well... sometimes they fix it... our kitchen sink still makes weird gurgling noises and smells every so often, but oh well...) We don't own a car, so there's no car maintenance to take care of and our health is okay....no perfect but not enough that wouldn't be covered by OHIP or our benefits plan.

So,Chris and I had a discussion and agreed that $500 was enough for now. After all our debt is paid off, we'll save more for the emergency fund but for now this is sufficient.

Having said that, next month we'll take out the last $155 from our next pay towards the emergency fund. This will also mean we'll have enough to pay Chris' library debt off in January! SO EXCITING! (We just found a few months ago he didn't return some CDs or books long before he met me. He never even  knew about this debt but we're determined to clear this up ASAP!)

The other awesome piece of good news is our city has decided to decrease every one's rent by 1.15% in our building. This means that our rent will be going down by $15,18 from January 1st - April 30th. On May 1st we have the annual rental increase but we've already worked out that cost and it's only $4.39 more than what we pay right now. This is something we can definitely handle. Happy dance!

Beyond that, we'll be looking at our food budget over the next month or two to see if we need to make a few adjustments to it. I always feel like our food budget comes up short and we overspend a little -- not by much -- but it's something we may need to talk about in the future in more detail.

We hope this blog post finds you all thinking about your own Baby Steps victory.  What if something happened tomorrow? Do you have an emergency fund in place that could aid you in case something goes wrong? How would you pay for it? Credit card or line of credit? Perhaps an emergency fund of $500 or $1,000 could help soften the blow when Murphy comes to visit you... Y'know...Murphy's Law? Yup, he loves to pop up on all of us just at the worst of times...

Selling Jewellery

Chris went over to a pawn shop today with the jewellery I had dug out of my jewellery box last week. It turns out the necklaces I thought that were given to me were not gold but brass -- which is fine, they have no sentimental value to me. Thankfully the old ring I had was real and we received $90 for it. So, now we're back up to $130 in our emergency fund as we continue to allow it to climb to the $1,000 needed to move on to Baby Step #2... We just have another $870 to go!

We still need to try and sell the TV stand, which we'll probably try to start doing on Friday or Saturday and we hope to get a few dollars out of it. For now, it's just sits there collecting dust taking up space in our living room.

In the meantime, we already know how much in January and February we must put aside in order to reach the 1K mark if we don't find anything else to sell.

Now, a lot of people might ask us, "Guys, why don't you go work a job or even a part-time job in order to generate a bit of income more quickly?" Most people in the "Dave Ramsey Community" call those "side hustles". The reason we're not doing side hustles that generate an income by work is simply because they would actually cause us more debt in the long run. As it is, Chris and I pay a fair share in income taxes back to our lovely government. Any more income generates a larger tax amount we must pay next year and that effects our taxes for several more years after that. It's....complicated to say the least but end result is we don't want to have to pay anymore money than we absolutely are obligated to pay to the Canadian Revenue Agency.

Now, if we had a car, I'd be dragging Chris to the local second hand stores to check out used furniture we can spruce up and resell, That would be a "side hustle" I'd LOVE to do!

As it is though, the whole point of doing this is so we can buy a car! Not having a car is a our biggest frustration in our daily life. (It would have been REALLY nice to have a car on Monday morning when I woke up in excruciating pain needing to get to the ER but that's another story for another day...)

I keep crunching the numbers to see how things look. We are doing well... but I'm not sure if we'll be able to reach out ultimate goal of adoption. The numbers along with the timeline might not be feasible but for now, I'll let God worry about that and we will continue to do what we can do today to make the adoption goal remain on the horizon of possibilities.

So, what did we do today to achieve that goal? Well, selling that ring sure helped us a little and Chris went out and bought salad for our dinner, as we were out, but stuck to the plan and didn't buy anything else. So far, so good... I guess we can call this day a victory! We'll see what tomorrow brings!

The Results of Our Budget Meeting

Chris and I had our planned budget meeting this weekend as I learned a lot this past week about something I'd like to start; having a on paper written budget. Chris did do our money spending/tracking via excel spreadsheet and we did have a written budget on paper but I really wanted to have it all accessible in one place and on paper.

So, we put together a Budget Binder for 2017. (We'll continue to track by his excel spreadsheet for the rest of this month.)

In our binder we figured out the exact amount we are in debt. Now, I thought the number was different than what it turned out to be and having said that we've already paid a huge portion off on our debt even before starting Dave Ramsey's TMM (Total Money Makeover). As we really started to beat down our debt in May of this year once we re-negotiated our (my) annuity. (My annuity is our sole income for the remainder of our lives. Also, I don't see this annuity as mine, but ours and we typically call it our "income" because to us it is, but I digress....)

After factoring in all debt accumulated as of May we had..... *deep scary breath in* $50,500 in debt. (To be more precise $50,449.09 but we have already paid off $23,284.18 and still have a remaining $27,564.91 to go!

A lot of people look at those numbers and think, "What the heck were you guys buying?!" Well, honestly a good portion of that debt was directly about the annuity. I won't go into all the details but somewhere around $35,000 is annuity related and the rest really is our own doing. We are not perfect and don't claim to be. We're sinners and have asked The Lord for forgiveness and grace. Both of us are so excited to be out of debt one day!

Having said that, our estimated goal to be out of debt is 2 years from now and we think we might only be a few months off that two year target making it 2 year and 3 months or so. It'll take a lot of work and a lot of sacrifices but I know we can both do it.

This past week we started with scouring our home for things to sell for cash. We found a pair of diamond earrings that Chris had bought for another girl LONG before he met me. (Yes, he did try to give me those earrings when we were dating. I was aghast that he would think I'd accept another girl's gift -- and besides they were not my style. Since we had no sentimental attachment to them, we sold them at local pawnshop generating $20 towards our first baby step was is to save $1,000 for your Emergency Fund.

Also, we sold our 32" LCD TV. Yup! We have gotten drastic, people! Honestly though, we don't watch TV much as I have trouble hearing the TV with my hearing impairment and as a result we typically watch our own individual shows on our laptops. Throughout our days and evenings together, if we are watching something on our laptops, we'll stop and chat, show each other something interesting we found and on a very rare occasion we watch something together, we can easily do that cuddled together in bed with a bowl of popcorn with a laptop. *shrugs* It's no hardship to us....

Unfortunately we sold the TV yesterday and today we had an emergency. Chris had to call an ambulance for me this morning as I was in severe pain. I have a new diagnosis now that we'll have learn to manage. The frustrating part about this financially is that we had $105 saved up so far... and now we're down to $40! Yes, cab fare IS expensive when you have to return from the hospital all the way across town! Arg! (I'll also need a wheelchair for the next two weeks to a month and we will have to use our MasterCard for that. This has been a frustrating day!!!)

However, we still have three more things we have already decided to sell. Chris' 25,000 baseball cards (yes he still is holding on to them all this time), the TV stand (we don't have a TV so why keep it?) and a bit of gold jewellery I've kept but don't wear.

I have one or two other things I'm currently researching to see if we can sell. We'll see... but the quicker we save up this $1,000 the sooner we can continue on to pay down debt!

This time of struggling, frustration and three-steps-forward-one-step-back will be worth it! We're not giving up hope just because today was a tough day that made us take a huge step behind us.

Keep it up, folks. If you're trying to slay the Debt Dragon along with us. DO NOT GIVE UP HOPE. Look forward, to the light of Christ and remember that He is bigger than that dragon.

Uh...Gazelle Intensity....wh-?

Oh excuse me... new terminology always needs explaining! My apologies...

To be "gazelle intense" means running faster than the lion that's chasing me. That lion in those credit card companies or the student loans folks, or heck even the dang slimy car dealers!

Run... run fast! Run so fast that don't even look for you anymore! How do we run that fast? We run by putting those Baby Steps to financial freedom really close together and no matter what following each step.

I know we all think it's impossible to be out of debt completely. I get it, but that's a lie. You have to remember that.

I have become gazelle intense. Chris isn't there yet... he's that slow gazelle who is running to be with me but he doesn't really see the lion behind him yet. He's just kinda following my cute behind and wants to stay close to his female gazelle and he'll run, if that's what I want to do but if it was up to him, he wouldn't be running. Instead he'd be lying in the sun for a pleasant afternoon nap.

On the other hand, I not only see the lion but I can see our end result of freedom from debt and having a fully funded emergency fund and enough money saved for the things we want for our life -- including the ability to give and give freely the way God intended for us.

Out of the two of us, I've always been the one with the more intense passion and the clear vision. Chris is more of the "let's think about this awhile" type and although I get that it's time for action!

I know soon enough Chris will change his tune and he'll get his jog amped up to a full-on run. I'll just have to give him the time and space to do so. He'll catch his stride and instead of chasing my tail, soon he'll be taking the lead.

Tomorrow Chris and I will sit down at our dining room table and fill out the Budget Binder for this coming year. I'll eventually share that with you all but first give us a moment to understand the numbers as we crunch them.

I cannot wait though, for those of you who need this intensity to feel the fire under your feet. Your debt is NOT forever. You can do this... pray on it...listen to a little of Dave Ramsey on YouTube and you'll see what I mean. You will have gazelle intensity too, if you let The Lord lead you.

Budgeting with gazelle intensity

We discovered Dave Ramsey's "Total Money Makeover" recently and ironically, Chris and I were already doing what Dave was preaching. Did we have all the steps perfectly in line they way he lays them out? No, but we were starting to focus on our lives are paying down debt to get out of debt as quickly as possible.

So, we've decided to jump on this with "gazelle intensity" and actually sit down and out a written budget. We did pretty well last month with a written budget, but this month is even more intensely focused. We can see the vision and we have faith that God will guide us through every single step of the way to His glory.

To back up a little our income is a little bit different than most. We have one income between us and unlike most household with one income I am technically the breadwinner. We don't see it quite that clearly but... that's what the secular world sees. You see, the money is not mine. It's not Chris' either. It's actually God's money.

We want to do right by "God's money". We feel called to do a few things in our future but in order to get there we need to clean up our past....the debt that makes us feel like we have a ball and chain every where we go.

We've made some progress on our own but now with the "Total Money Makeover" and the baby steps program there's a fire under our tushies!

Budgeting hasn't been easy, but we've done it... and we're sticking to it pretty well. I'm proud of us. Chris is also very proud of us. We've made sacrifices and cut back on things we love but we know in the end it'll be worth it.

The whole goal is to see if we're able to adopt a child one day... That's what we want to do. To own a home and have a kid...just like everyone else... We know with our debt it's just not possible and although we love our two-bedroom apartment we cant see ourselves here forever.

As we go along we hope to joyfully celebrate each courageous step we take along the way. Our first baby step? Well, to have an emergency fund of $1,000! We'll get there... and we think it'll be set by February 1st. We already have $20 this month! Next month we have bigger plans which requires us to have gazelle intensity!