I made it!

I thought this day would never come. 

For quite some time now my husband has been on me to start a blog about personal finances.  About three years ago we were blessed to have paid off all of our consumer debt--no more car payments, student loan payments, home equity loan payments--sweet freedom!  Ever since then, I have had a passion for sharing with others about money matters.  Whenever I talk to someone and they mention their food bill being out of control my heart starts racing because I can't wait to share all kinds of tips on how to buy groceries cheaply (I checked--cheaply is a word).

That being said, this summer God spoke plainly to me regarding what He wanted me to blog about.  Believe it or not, my assignment from Him wasn't all of the insights that I learned from our time getting out of debt (although I'm sure this blog will have some of those here and there).  He told me to blog about how He is going to make us completely debt-free in five years.  That means paying off our mortgage, currently at a balance of $98,000.

I am a homemaker.  For a little over a year now, I've had the privilege of not working on purpose.  Several years ago God put in me a desire to be at home for my children who are all school age now.  Thankfully, a few years after getting out of consumer debt, God made that dream come to pass.  So when I heard Him speak to me about paying off our mortgage in five years I wondered about what I could do to help God accomplish this.  I thought, "I know.  I'll walk the neighbor's dogs for extra cash and put all of it towards our mortgage.  Then I can blog about my days with the dogs and how close we are getting to being debt-free."  God gave me no peace in that thought.  He told me that if my mortgage gets paid off in that way, the glory goes to my neighbor and not to Him.  Instead, He told me to trust Him and let Him (can you imagine--leaving it up to God?!) determine how my mortgage will get paid. 

So here I am, taking this first step into the Red Sea by starting this blog, waiting for Him to part the waters...