At Home Shopping

Hello again! I promise, we have not been ignoring you, but life has kept us a bit busy. And with that being said, thank you as always for stopping by to visit during your busy lives. We appreciate it more than you know.

Recently I've been "shopping" in my own home. Rearranging from room to room, to "freshen" things up a little. As I have been working very hard to obtain financial peace, I've placed myself on a spending freeze.  Unfortunately, this became the end result of the wall by my back door after moving a picture from here to another room. Honestly, I'm embarrassed to say, it's been blank for weeks. I had nothing to put there at all.

Until this white frame fell from the top of a cabinet where it was propped as a layering piece. I picked it up and had nothing else to do with it, but hang it on the empty nail by the door (light bulb moment..). Picture quality...not so good. Sorry, I'm working on this...



I wish my cabinets were painted white. I'm not that brave just yet and my husband would probably not dig the idea. Oh well,  I'll dwell on it a little longer..

  As I shopped the house for the perfect decorative plate or picture of my girls to place in the center, I thought of the dinner party we were having for my nephew Bradley that night, as he is leaving in a few days for Haiti. How appropriate to find a picture of him to celebrate. This is his second mission trip and he had such wonderful pictures of his previous trip. It was a tough decision, they're all so beautiful and touching. I chose one from the file, printed it on plain paper and this is the end result. I love it and it's staying here for a long time to come. To top it all off, free decor...I can afford that ;) 

                

A picture is worth a thousand words. You can see the love and this is exactly what's calling him back. He and his friend Blair are going to serve for a month and a half with Mission of Hope Ministries. If you would like to follow in their journey you can visit them at http://www.bb2haiti.blogspot.com/ .

They leave Wednesday, 2/16/2011. We pray for their protection as they follow God's will.

Here are a few other pictures from his past trip.

 Matthew 20:26-28 says “It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Blessings...Marie

Dear Dave,

Dear Dave Ramsey,

You have been consuming my every day and night.  All I think about is numbers and getting out of debt and how to make more money to do so.  I wanna be debt ffffrrreee!!!!

STOP WORRYING ABOUT MONEY

Connie and I, as well as our hubbies, have signed up for a course in Financial Peace University instructed by Dave.  He is teaching us to dump debt, build wealth and change our family tree.

Since beginning this journey several weeks ago, my husband and I have roped in all the figures and we're trying to grasp Dave's concept to "live like no one else so one day you can live like no one else."  I can say, living now like a college student (money-wise) ain't a whole lotta fun.  But we're holding onto the light at the end of the tunnel.  Accumulating debt didn't happen overnight and we're not expecting to get out of it overnight.  Hopefully by following Dave's advice, we'll be free of these chains of debt in 18 months!  We are motivated to do this because we feel like we were not put on this earth to be "slaves to the lender", as Dave likes to say.  I wanna live a decent life, give my kids what they need (and a little bit of what they want) and owe no one.  This takes a different mentality and getting over an instant gratification concept entirely.  We have to save and plan...period.  Dave says I can do this.  And if Dave says it...well then, I believe it!   I wish this was taught to us in school years ago and even more, I wish it was being taught to our kids in school now!  Believe me, our kids will get the concept, they really won't have a choice actually.... it's the hard knocks life these days, that's right!....we're taking baby steps...


So far we have:


1. Saved for our emergency fund.


2. Created a budget. This sounds simple huh, not so much.


3. Now we're working on paying off debts and snowballing it right on down the line....until our home is paid for and we're debt fffffrrrrreeeee!!!!!!  Seriously, it's possible!


btw, Dave says "sell so much stuff that the kids think they're next"....


This is a 13 week long series and we're 4 down. We'll keep you posted on our progress and how it's changed our lives.  Hopefully not divorce court...;)    Marie