heymae

30 Before 30 List Item #3

6
Sep 2009

Okay, so I had every intention of writing this Thursday evening, but I fell asleep. I apologize to all of you that were sitting at your computers anxiously awaiting my post and had to go to bed disappointed. Please know that it is very possible it could happen again! If it does, I will do my very best to post 2 items the next day! It actually works out well, part of the reason I was SO tired the last part of this week has to do with my new goal. AND it is actually kind of a 2-parter, so it makes sense to post them both together! So, what I am trying to say is, I was totally planning falling asleep at 8 o’clock and being tired all week so I could post both of these items together! Onto the Items!

30 Before 30 List Item #3

**Feel Secure**

This one is a little more serious than the other two, and it has two parts! The first part, and the part that has me so extra tired, has to do with Money! Let me start at the beginning. Ian and I got married VERY young, and then had Zane VERY young. We have both been going to school for the past 8 years. Ian finally graduated in May, YEAH!! I, however, chose to have another baby instead of rushing to finish school. I am totally cool with this decision. What I am trying to say is that Ian and I have been doing the poor, starving college student thing for a REALLY REALLY long time. Don’t get me wrong, we have always had enough to meet our needs, and have felt very blessed over the years, but there is always this sense of worry that I carry about money. It might have something to do with the fact that we have never really been able to build up a very good savings, and every time our income seems to drastically increase, it just as drastically decreases. An example, I had a great job at a mortgage company that finally felt stable, and then one day they came in and shut down our entire office. Out of nowhere. Luckily, they paid us a severance package for the next 5 months, but I quickly had to find a new way to make ends meet. Then there is my daycare, I don’t even have to tell you how unstable that is. I went from 8 almost all full-time kids to 4 very part-time kids in a couple months. I now make about 25% what I was making a 6 months ago. Is it any surprise that I am always stressing about money? I know a lot of people that are struggling even worse than we are, and this economy has me totally freaking out at all times.

Well, I am tired of stressing. My goal for the next couple years is to do every single thing I can do to save up enough money to feel secure. I have always been really into finance and budgeting, and Ian and I have done pretty good through our marriage. We don’t have credit cards, the only debts we have are from medical bills or our car. We also have some Student Loans. My goal is to be able to pay all of those off, as well as save a 3-6 month Emergency Fund. I can only imagine how amazing this is going to feel.

About a year ago I read the book Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey and I loved it. I have read a LOT of financial advice books over the years, but this one I felt was the best of them all. It has a very specific plan for eliminating debt and saving money. We actually started implementing the steps into our budget months ago, but then I lost so many kids and that used up our savings pretty quickly. Now, we are back on track and more committed than ever. Ian has a great job that pays him well that he loves. I am in a better mind frame to handle my ever fluctuating daycare income, and have taken a lot of steps to adjust our budget to handle this.

One of the first steps we are doing is building up a small emergency fund before we begin actively trying to eliminate our debts. This is where our garage sale came in, and one of the reasons I have been SO extra tired. The book recommends getting rid of all that extra stuff we all carry in our homes that we don’t really need. Ian and I went through our stuff and found quite a bit of that! We sold some of it at a garage sale, posted some on craigslist, and have made close to $200 already! Not too bad for a bunch of stuff we had in boxes in our garage!! We still have a bunch of stuff left, and some people that want to buy some stuff from our craigslist posts this week, so I am curious to see what our final total will be! I am trying to put myself in the mind frame that any sacrifices we make now will pay off ten times when we have the security to not have to worry about money so much. It is going to be hard. We are going to have to say NO a lot. This is hard for us, we like to be at every event possible. We have had months where we were out of town every weekend because it was someone’s birthday, or a holiday, or someone wanted to get together and we can no longer do that. Everything has to be well planned and budgeted. But like I said, any sacrifices we make now are going to pay off so much more in the long run.

I am going to be blogging about this a lot since it is one of the items on my list that I am actively working on right now. I highly recommend Dave’s Book to anyone else who is tired of feeling stressed and wants a little more security in their lives. He has a great set of steps to lead you on the path to financial freedom. (okay that was corny…)