Week 8: Our journey to the fasted lifestyle, pt. 14

This week was hard.  I mean really really hard.  It was a loose spending week.  We didn't adhere to our allowances very well.  We treated ourselves way too much.  Lots of little things add up over time. Thank the Lord it wasn't so bad that we had already spent our paycheck, like we used to.

We do have many great financial testimonies from this week though.  May was an odd month paycheck wise.  We ended up having a check that wasn't specifically designated for anything in particular.  That is a first!  First time ever that we could sit down and really allocate funds to digging out of debt and fixing stuff up around the house.

We have a long list of medical debt (mine from college), house repairs, and other things here and there that we have on our plate.  A lot of the house stuff is technically a need, but if it functions even a little, we will wait till we have more money.

Well, with this paycheck we knocked a couple of projects (supplies that is) off the list, paid the 2 remaining bills for the month, got a tire because we were riding on the donut, paid 3 co-pays before they went to collections, 1 debt item off my credit report from a few years ago, got a new DVD player because the last one was broken, got a pool membership for our neighborhood pool, and actually had a date night for the first time in months!

Can you believe it?  All that and we still have some left over.  We are trying to figure out what to do with the rest.  Save half for a bigger house project and use the other half to payoff another bill?  Use all of it to pay off a bill?  Use all of it to complete a house project?  Save all of it?  We are praying for guidance on this one for sure.  We don't want to be foolish and every option we have discussed seems like it would be a wise choice.  It's wise to save it, it's wise to pay off debt, it's wise to get our house in order.  Just which one is the best?  We have no idea.

Oh and another praise report, the tire that we had budgeted into our spending only cost us around $17!  It was under warranty!!!! Hallelujah!

This is my step-dad hanging out with Zoe.  They just love each other.  If he is around, Mommy and Daddy are chopped liver.  Which is totally fine with me.  I love how they love each other!

Lesson learned this week:  Freedom comes out of obedience and submission.  Freedom can come in many forms and we are seeing the freedom in our finances.  We are not eating our money the way we used to even though this was a hard week.  The Lord had such grace for us and this just gives us encouragement to dive back in, resubmit and press on toward the goal which is the Lord's presence.