Financial Peace University - Week 4

Week four was an empowering lesson. It was the debt lesson. Jason and I feel so ready to take on our debts and we now have a plan. The "Debt Snowball". We will send only the minimum on all of our debts except for the smallest one. As we knock out the smaller debts, more money will be free to take on the next lowest debt. Eventually, we will only be paying on our largest debt and we will have more to send them.

I wasn't too sure when I first heard about the debt snowball last year. I thought, shouldn't we focus on the large bill? No! As you knock out smaller debts, your "snowball" grows and gains momentum. By paying off smaller debts first, you are freeing up more money to tackle that large debt and you are also eliminating debt. Eliminating debt is such a motivator. To pay off a debt, no matter how small, is a huge feat! We have one card that will be paid off next month and we are thrilled! The month after that another card should be paid off. See the momentum building?

We were told to attack our debt with "gazelle intesity". What does that mean? It means, go at it with all you have, like a gazelle running from a cheetah:


(image credit)

The metaphor is collectors as the cheetah and us (people with debt) as the gazelle. We need to attack our debt with all that we have before it becomes the end of us. Before we let it get the best of us. We need to fight for freedom from debt!

It was such a great lesson this week and I am so glad to see Jason just as pumped as I am to send all we can spare to pay off our debts!

Sister Weekend

My sister drove down on Saturday morning because she was off for a couple of days. She got here at 10 on Saturday morning and we went to the art museum since she had never been there before.

I had this bright idea that I didn't want to pay for parking so we would park on the street. For free. There is a small strip of road a short walk away with free parking. You guessed it, it was full. So, still not wanting to pay for parking, I drove us down the lakefront and parked. It really wasn't that far, just a quick 15 minute walk in the cold wind...

Amelia sure does like going to the museum:


She loves looking at all the colors!

Now that she is a little older we went down to the chair park:


Amelia picked the yellow chair to sit in:


Downstairs they also have a new area about green furniture. Amelia tried out a chair made from bike parts:


Then she fell off of a low couch and we headed out... On our way out we stopped in the store and Amelia got two new books. We gave choices. We would hold up a stuffed animal or a toy and she always wanted a book. Here she is checking out one of her new books in the car:


Then we got home and saw daddy:


He requested that I explain this picture, well. Amelia was still in her carseat and Jason was making faces at her through the window. Then he started blowing on the window to make her laugh and I was able to capture the moment. Quite well, I think.

Saturday night we went to Wal-Mart to get household items and groceries. Yes, we grocery shop at Wal-Mart. This was our second time. One stop is just so much easier than two and the prices are also nicer (usually) at Wal-Mart. After getting home and eating dinner, Kim and I went to see the new Alice in Wonderland at my work. Gotta love free movies, free popcorn and free soda! Now if only we could find a free babysitter...then Jason and I could see more movies!

Sunday morning we woke up and were all mixed up with the time and didn't end up making it to church. We played for a bit. Amelia's toy piggy bank was the big hit of the morning:


At one point, Amelia just sort of slowly leaned back with one of the coins:


When it was time to move, she would just shove the coin in her mouth and leave it there:


What a funny girl!

Kim left late in the afternoon yesterday. I picked up the house, kind of, and got ready for work. That was our weekend! It was full of girl-time!


Thanks for the visit, Kim!

A Day With Daddy

Jason and Amelia spend Friday together, as it is the only day that I work during the daytime. When I left today, around lunchtime, I told Jason to take some pictures so I would have something to blog about. Well, he took about 115 pictures...no joke!

So, here is their day. In pictures.







Dinner:


Our little patient*:



(*explanation here)




Happy to be home with my girl:




Quote from Jason (after I showed him the post preview), "I'm awesome". Followed by, "Yep. Supa awesome". I think he likes his photography skills. I would like them even more if more of the pictures he took turned out! He likes to try different angles and stuff to experiment. Today he was experimenting with no flash, so most of the pictures are all blurred. In some of them Amelia barely even shows up. Like this one:


(click to enlarge and see the weirdness)

We are crawling into bed for a movie now...if we can stay up for one that is!

Spring is Coming!

The berries are growing...


The snow is melting...


The birds are back...


It is coming...SPRING!

This morning, after breakfast, we went on a "spring" walk. It was overcast, foggy and sloppy out but we went anyways so we could get some fresh air and listen to the birds.


We stopped at the playground at South Shore Park and Amelia had some fun in the swing for a little while:


Jason wanted to take her down some slides so he brought her to the top of one...


...and quickly realized that I was right, it was too wet to slide down! Next time.


We skipped rocks at the marina:



Amelia and Jason shared a moment by the water:


Jason had some fun:


(click to enlarge)

I did not find this fun. I kept telling him we needed to go before we got in trouble! (for the record, he was right, we did not get into any trouble)

We finally headed home and had an awesome lunch of homemade chicken soup and bread and now everyone is napping (except me, obviously).

Next up for us? Taking Poopy to the vet. The poor guy is having some troubles and he needs to be seen :( We think it all started with the missing chicken wishbone (from the whole chicken used for the homemade chicken soup) that Jason stepped on...but half was missing. They seem to think that he might have some sort of bacterial infection that may stem from this missing piece of chicken bone. We are pretty sure it was Poopy who "got into" the bone. It's always him causing the trouble/messes, well, at least it is him 95% of the time. He is such a bad influence on my perfect little angels - Ludo and Lucky ;)

Hopefully everyone is having a good week so far! Today has been very good for us since the week got off to a rough start - mostly for me - which impacts Jason's week too!

Financial Peace University - Week 3

This week I went to class alone. We didn't have a sitter for Amelia :( That's ok though, we have all the lessons on CD as part of our membership kit and Jason did today's lesson on his own. (yay!)

Tonight we went into depth about budgets and cash flow planning. Wow. Once we get this down our lives will be so different. Dave says that we need to give each dollar a name, a purpose, before the start of each month. By doing so we will be able to have a zero-based plan, meaning, our income - our outflow = zero. Every dollar is accounted for. Money will go into savings, into paying bills, food etc. It is all accounted for and all "spent".

Working out our budget and cash flow plan will take us a few months to get right but I think we can do it! I have tried budgeting in the past but it just never worked. Since our income is based on our hourly wages and fluctuating hours it was hard for me. After tonight I feel like I can tackle it from a whole different angle and make it work.

So that is our homework this week. Budgeting and cash flow plans!

Feeling Off

I have been feeling pretty off for about a week now. Between small group issues and being verbally attacked by a co-worker, I am spent - mentally and physically. Mostly mentally. Amelia and I decided we should just stay in our jammies all day today.


I have never felt more judged within the same week/past 7 days in my entire life and it hurts. A lot.

9 o'clock Service

This morning, Amelia and I got up earlier than normal to attend the new 9:00 a.m. service at Epikos. I think we might be doing that from now on, in fact!


It was just Amelia and 2 little boys in the nursery and I think she liked that.


She had a great nap this afternoon and is so full of energy now.


Can you tell? I think these pictures convey her pretty well.


I love it when she is all smiles. It makes my long days* better.



*long days = playing with/caring for Amelia all day and working all night.

Comments

First, I want to say that I love getting comments. It encourages me to keep posting some days actually!

I am going to be disabling the option of posting as "anonymous" tonight though. Why? First, I like to know who it is leaving the comment so I can acknowledge them. Second, because I didn't like a comment I received on my last post and would feel better knowing who it was from. The comment said the following:

"You should really find other things to bribe her with other then food. That is how eating disorders start."

Seriously? She is one. ONE! When a child is so upset that they are spitting out their pacifier and nothing you are doing can calm them down, I think a snack is just fine. It is not like I was sitting there shoving food in her mouth to make her "shut up". I was giving her a snack, something to soothe her, something to take her mind off of the pain she just went through. Yes, when I stopped giving her yogurt melts (after 3, maybe 4) she continued to cry so I gave her a couple more. It's not like she ate the entire bag of them.

More importantly, she is one. Why on earth would the phrase "eating disorder" be something that would come to mind? I am very offended by a comment like that. I am pretty agitated right now, in fact. Amelia is one. I do not believe, as her mother and an intelligent human being, that me appeasing her with a few snacks once will have any lasting effect on her.

Since it was anonymous, I am assuming that it was not someone I know. I am also assuming it wasn't someone I know because when I tried picturing even the most sarcastic people in my life saying that, it didn't fit. I just don't think someone I know would say something like that. If it was someone I know and they read this response, keep it to yourself (that is was you) and please refrain from making comments like that in the future to anyone. It is just not appropriate.

One Year Check-Up

This morning, bright and early, I took Amelia to her one year check-up! It is still hard to believe that a year has gone by already. Today she weighed in at 21 pounds and 2 ounces (50th percentile) and was 30.5 inches tall (75th percentile). She is following her growth curves perefctly, which is great!

She had two shots, chicken pox and MMR, in her arms. This was the first time she has had shots in her arms and I was a wreck. It was the first time that I cried when she was getting shots (usually I laugh, because she is so mad for such a short time and then is fine). Today she was a wreck. They drew blood to check for lead exposure and to re-check her iron levels so she was already screaming when it came time for the shots. Then the shots came. It was awful. I felt so terrible for her. I had to bribr her with yogurt melts to stop crying and as soon as the flow of food stopped, the crying started again. We took forever to get ready to leave the room!

On to other news...


What is Amelia so excited about? This:


(he hates when I take cheesy pictures of him and usually refuses to smile)

Her daddy is on the front page of the Bay View Compass from the Winter Blast two weekends ago! Here is a link to the online version of the story.