God has challenged me to write about how He will supernaturally pay off our mortgage in 5 years. I am a homemaker, my husband is a teacher, and we have three children. Our mortgage balance at the start of this blog is $97,802.62 with a projected payoff date of May 11, 2035.

Sounds foolish, huh? The Bible says that, "...God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise;..." So I am choosing to be foolish and trust Him. He's never let me down before.

Friday, August 31, 2012

Lost and Found

Today I ran a marathon of errands with my sister.  We started at 9am and didn't get done until after 2pm.  Needless to say by the end of the day I was spent.

On the road that I came to after her house, a car was stopped in front of me.  It had a Maryland license plate and the driver was asking a school crossing guard for directions.  I waited, trying to be as patient as possible, while the guard pointed out the way the way that the driver should go.

It wasn't long after receving directions from the crossing guard that the driver pulled over enough to let me pull up beside him and rolled down his window. 

"How do I get to 83?"

I was so tired from going in and out of stores, in and out of the heat that I just wanted to take the most direct route home.  But the spirit of God spoke to me to help this man out.  I simply said,

"Follow me."

And follow me he did.  Trusting that I was leading him the right way.  We went through the city, into the suburbs, on past a commercial area, and finally to the highway.  As I led him I kept thinking, 'I hope he doesn't lose hope thinking he won't get to where he's trying to go.' 'I hope he trusts me to get him to his destination.' 

Once we made it to the point where I had to part ways with him, I pointed in the direction of the sign that read "83" so that he could veer off.  As he passed me on the right, he smiled and waved a 'thank you', happy to be on his way.

As all of this was occuring, I couldn't help but think about the sovereignty of God.  He timed my errands just right so that I could help this lost man to find his way.  In the same way, everything in our lives is timed and planned out by the Master so that His will is done.  I am so thankful for being used today for something so simple that made a difference in the life of another.

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

A Woman After My Own Heart

Had to post a link to this story about a woman who has not bought anything new for the past five years.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/48678819/ns/today-money/t/could-you-go-years-without-anything-new-mom-did

She does make some exceptions including underwear and food.  However, mostly she shops at thrift stores, gets things for free, and borrows or shares with others.  Let me know what you think!

The Harvest

Most mornings when I walk, I bring along a scripture card.  Today's verse was Hebrews 12:11.

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.  Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

In meditating on that scripture (in other words, not simply reading it for memory, but reading it for change), I started remembering what life was like while we were working to get out of debt.  We committed to pinching pennies, cutting back on spending, and living a "bare bones" lifestyle.  The discipline of that was painful.  I made decisions to not spend time with particular people because that time would involve money.  I can remember several meals of rice, beans, and cheese.  When child friends would come to us asking us to buy whatever fundraising product they were selling, we had to tell those sweet little faces 'no'.  But later on...

We are able to give to others while still meeting our own needs.  There is savings in place for emergencies and beyond.  I have been able to leave my job to be a homemaker.  But best of all, the discipline has trained us how to spend money well.  We go out to eat, but we use half price deals.  We buy clothes, but hardly ever at retail price.  Doing the hard things 'at the time' develops righteousness and peace 'later on'. 

I encourage you to work at whatever difficult task God has appointed for you at this time knowing that later on, the harvest will be well worth it.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Disney Delayed

Tonight at dinner we dropped the bomb on our kids.  After much prayer, planning, and crunching of numbers, we made the decision to not take a trip to Disney World that we had been planning for September.

Needless to say they were disappointed, but thankfully not crushed.  We explained to them that we would have to spend money that currently goes towards our "extras" for the next 3 months--and that was not even factoring in meals for the trip.  For us to decide to just go anyway would be irresponsible to them as parents.  We'd already done irresponsible in the beginning of our marriage and don't want to go there again.

Going through this has reminded me of how grateful I am for all that God has taught us about money in the process of getting rid of our consumer debt.  We know that there is a satisfcation in saving up for something and waiting on it.  That is our plan for Disney.  We've told the kids to be saving for when that time comes, as well reminding them that 'no' for now can mean 'better' for later.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

A Lesson Learned

Yesterday I went on some errands with my two sons.  Our first stop was at the ATM machine to deposit some money that we had withdrawn, but ended up not spending.  My oldest son asked, “Mom, how come you’re putting your money back into the bank?  Why don’t you just keep it out?”
I shared with him about how when a person has money with them, the temptation is to spend it.  But if money is kept in the bank, the inconvenience of having to get it out of the bank tends to override the desire to spend it.  Out of sight, out of mind.  He seemed to get it.
While we were out, we shopped for new sneakers for this same son.  Ross and I had budgeted to spend $25 because, believe it or not, there are still sneakers out there that you can get for $25.  Anything above that amount and our son would foot the rest of the bill.
When he did find the sneakers that fit him well and that he liked, they were $30.  I persuaded him to go to one more shoe store a few doors up to see if they might have a better price.  They did, have a better price, a price so good that he would not have had to pay any money towards the shoes and we would have been under our $25 budget.  However, he was set on having the $30 shoes.  So we went back to the previous store.
The cashier who rang up our purchase told us that if we became a member of their rewards club, we could get an additional 5% off of our purchase.  I said, “Sure!”  So instead of having to spend his whole $5 that he had brought with him, our son only had to spend $2.50.  Guess what he did?  Immediately he began to look around for what else he could buy to go with the shoes—socks, shoelaces, etc.  I chuckled to myself and reminded him of the temptation of having money with you that we had discussed only an hour earlier.  “Oh, yeah,” he remembered.  He got it.