Financial Woes (Part 2)

"For the Lord your God will bless you just as He promised you; you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow; you shall reign over many nations, but they shall not reign over you. (DEUTERONOMY 15:6)

Last week I gave into the despair that had been looming for quite some time, always quietly threatening to push through my barriers of faith, and I wept tears of fear. I didn't look for words of comfort and direction in my bible as I normally do when I'm down. I ignored my husband's pleas for me to talk to him about what was wrong even when I could see that I was hurting him by pushing him away. I ignored my cousin's words spoken from a place of experience and even her offer for some tangible assistance. Instead, I allowed my fingers to vomit words of anguish and then clicked publish.

The 'reality' that I chose to live by in those hours of depression was an ugly one, but I rolled around in it until its stench was seeping out of every one of my pores. But that doesn't have to be the reality that my husband and I walk in. This weekend I spent some time in the promises of God and have decided that my future doesn't have to be bleak. Yes, I have a few bills, yes my house has normal necessities, and yes, often it does seem that it would be nice if That Dude and I had a little more income to cover some of these costs of living BUT we aren't nearly as bad off as I made it sound. We really are blessed in so many ways. Based on my calculations, we should have enough money coming in over the course of the next few weeks to bring our 'active bills' (e.g., electricity, Internet, cable, phones, etc - as opposed to the older debt) under control, if we make wise choices. We have family members who are willing to help a bit here and there until we're out of the hole. Lastly and most importantly, we have each other and the promises of the Lord that tell us of a brighter future!


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Financial Woes

**Disclaimer: I'm not asking for money, just sharing my struggle. This blog is sometimes simply a place where I can let things out before my head explodes from thinking so much.**

As I lay here in my quiet apartment, all I want to do is cry. Crazy thoughts run through my head: "Maybe all of the naysayers were right." Maybe we rushed into marriage without knowing what we were getting ourselves into." "Maybe we're just not going to be able to successfully pull this off."

No, That Dude and I aren't unhappy with each other. In fact, the love is so thick you can cut through it with a pair of scissors when you're around us! Our issue is money. More bills than we know what to do with and less income than we need to keep us afloat. Ok, that's not totally true, we can afford to pay our monthly bills and rent with our income. The problem is that we're still playing catch-up with the bills that we weren't paying so that we could pay for the wedding. It's so frustrating to have to wait ANOTHER week to go food shopping (we've been lucky in that there is a food pantry at That Dude's job and they've allowed us to bring home a few cans and some dry goods, but it just isn't enough to actually put together meals.) My mom has helped some, but even she doesn't really know how tight things have been for the last few weeks.

I know that I have to trust that God is going to carry us through this and that we'll be fine, but it's tough when I know that I've just sent my husband off to work without eating anything for breakfast and with no lunch money (again).

I do a great job of smiling and pretending that things are fine, but inside I'm struggling to stay afloat. I'm terrified of what our financial future looks like and I just don't know what to do anymore.
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Frugal Living

If you haven't heard, I'm getting married soon (although at this point, I'm not so sure about how soon 'soon' really is.) Anyway, so we're trying to save toward the wedding and apartment as well as just trying to learn how to spend less in general since, whenever 'soon' rolls into town, we'll suddenly have bills and rent and all that good stuff.

Any suggestions on how we can cut corners? I'd be especially grateful for some low budget date ideas too!

Thanks!!

Six Word Saturday

Make sure to visit Cate to see who else is participating this week!

Oh boy, has it really been a whole week?! Well today (payday) was a reminder of what furloughs really are, so my six words are:

I wish furloughs were paid vacations!

Money Matters...

I recently made the decision to roll over a 403b into a 401k. Of course, I had the option of rolling over into an IRA, but 401k was the obvious choice you see...

And now for those of you who haven't closed the window/clicked away to another site/fallen asleep... I have no idea what I'm talking about, but the above statement is true! Through my job's benefits package, I was given the option of signing up for a 403b. I didn't really know much about what that meant except for what the representative explained at the presentation. I knew that part of my money would be going into an account that would fund different companies. I knew that the money would partially go to stocks and the rest into some other kind of "safer" investments. And I knew that if I ever wanted to get this money back before I retired, it would probably take lots of paperwork and headaches! But everyone said it was a good idea to begin investing towards my financial future, so I signed up.

Now, a few months in, my organization is beginning the process of slowly breaking away from the parent organization, so we're being offered new companies for health benefits and apparently a new investment package. My organization STILL isn't matching my investment, but apparently there's a bunch of paperwork and the money that I've already put into the original package still can't be touched, so I have to "roll it over" (I'm sorry, did I invest in a dog and not know about it?) into another type of account.

I know that at some point I really should be checking this thing, but I get a headache just thinking about it (in fact, can someone PLEASE pass me a Tylenol???) I get the quarterly statements and don't even open them! They could have slipped me a check for a million dollars in one of their mailings and it would go untouched.

As for REAL money (I'm sorry, but money that comes out of my check before I even see it and I can't touch til I'm 70 just doesn't count as "real" money in my book!) I'm working on spending better. It's been difficult, but I think I'm getting there. I'm going to go back to writing down everything that I spend so that I have some idea of why my bank account is almost near empty on a regular basis, and then hopefully I'll see some places where I can cut.

Any money saving tips? Any thoughts on grown ups having to be "money-minded"? Any thoughts on money in general? You know what to do!