Monday, October 11, 2010

Well it's been a while

So the Dave Ramsey plan worked great for anyone wondering. I still have student loans I'm dealing with, but my consumer debt was eliminated. I'll give a much more in depth post soon, on recent events in my life, and what God is doing with it.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Newest Update on the Dave Ramsey plan

In my last post I told everyone about what the Lord did with our taxes. Well this entry will further encourage you. God's timing is perfect...every time. When we first moved to Lufkin for me to take the student pastor position, I met with our business administrator and he helped us set up our Federal with holdings. He suggested the standard which most minister's use, and we told him to hold by airing on the side of caution. Well, God knew that we were holding the perfect amount. It was just enough to: get our emergency fund, pay Georgia State tax, save for upcoming expenses (Car tags, vet bill, exterminator etc), and to pay off our credit card. In fact it was only $200 more than what were going to need to do everything. Now we have adjusted our with holdings (as to not give the IRS an interest free loan every year). Since we still want to be cautious and don't want to with hold too little I chose a conservative amount that will guarantee a refund next year, but will still allow us to get back a good deal of income every month. This will really help us accelerate how fast we roll that "snowball". It was so cool that we "accidentally" took way to much money out, because it was the perfect amount of time for us to learn what God wanted us to learn, and in His timing it was like he started to release the flood gates so that we could be good stewards with His money.

On the struggle side; this month will be tough. We only have $25 a piece for personal expenses (eating out, renting a movie etc), and our grocery budget will be very tight. It's teaching us to really only buy what we can afford, and to set a limit. It was however exciting to pay bills this month because we have a plan, and are eager to follow it. It's one of the first times I have enjoyed paying bills! lol. I can't wait for the day that we can scream "were debt free!" but, until then it's going to be a lot of hard work, and I'm sure God will use it to glorify him along the way. God God!

Friday, March 5, 2010

God is so Big!

So I know God's word. I've experienced it in my life, and I preach it others, but God is so big! So often times I find myself much like the Israelites did while they were making the Golden calf. Here they were totally delivered out of slavery, witnesses to some of the coolest miracles that God ever did in the Old Testament, and then they seem to forget everything God had done for them.

Well I'm not saying I've recently participated in any idol worship, but I often forget how awesome God is, and just how big he is. Today I filed my taxes completely expecting about the same return as last year (approx. $2800). Michele and I didn't have much change from last year. I was a student last year, our income hasn't differed much, and we had Caroline when we filed last year, so there was no reason to expect more or less money. Before I tell you how much the tax return is for, I want to remind you about the commitment Michele and I just made...

It was but about a week ago that I read Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover. I was so hooked that I couldn't put the book down, I read it in 2 days. I was totally convicted about the way that I had been spending the money God had entrusted me to be a good steward of. So I "that's enough". Michele and I decided to get debt free, and actually manage our money biblically. We have plans to sell almost everything we own that has value, we had already planned to take our entire tax return and put it into the snowball effect. So a couple of days later (March 5, 2010) after we had made this commitment we go to get our taxes done, and it was the biggest return we have ever had in our life. $6,700!!!!!! That's over double what we were expecting! This will really accelerate our snowball effect. We are so excited, and so blown away from God. It was like was say "don't you dare limit me, and what I can do." I am humbled just to be a servant, and feel totally blessed that he is allowing me to do his work. I hope all you that read this are encouraged by our little story. We have a long way to go, but this was just a nice reminder He is on the throne, and is able to do anything he wants.

Matt

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Were going to be debt free!!!!

It's been a while since I've written here because I have been writing in my physical journal, and have really just forgotten about this blog. But my family has something new to talk about, so I wanted to write about it here. Were going to be debt free!!! Now, it's going to take a while, and it's going to be really, really hard! But, I'm so excited to get started...Here's the tipping point.

Last week I was rejected for a home loan for the second time in my life. An FHA home loan at that. I was really really bummed for about a 1/2 a day then I decided to stop having a pity party and pick up Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover book that had been sitting on my shelf gathering dust. I read through it in 2 days. I couldn't put it down, it was awesome! He's an incredible leader. His logic isn't genius, it's simple, biblical, and practical, but the way he leads people through it is where his true genius lies. We don't have an exact figure just yet on what our total debt is (because we don't have the most current student loan bills for this month) but, we have approximately $84,650 in debt. This includes a joint Visa card, a True line of credit, a car payment, 2 private school loans, 1 seminary loan. Our number is so high mainly because of our student debt. Unfortunately state schools don't offer the degree's that minister's need to get their education, so I took on a lot of debt for my education's sake. However, I have chosen no longer to be a slave to my debt. We are about to attack it with gazelle intensity! Were are going to file our taxes tomorrow which (if it's like last year) should give us approx $2,500 and were going to put that all on our visa card, almost paying it off. The next thing I'm doing is selling tons of stuff. I'm going to sell my: Glock 27 9mm pistol, baseball card collection (which is valuable), utility lawn trailer, my Kawasaki Ninja motorcycle, our family surround sound stereo, my old college car stereo, and anything else I can find worth any money. It will be painful, but I'm actually excited about seeing those things go because it just means I'm one step closer to being debt free. I already have a buyer for the gun and the trailer, but the rest of those things are still up for grabs if anyone's interested.

I feel like God is so excited about me setting the example, and being the leader he wants me to be. I can't wait to get to a point where we are able to do even more with what God has blessed us with. I will be doing a video log and posting it to youtube to track our trials, and successes. Stay tuned as I will keep this blog updated as well.

Were going to be debt free!!!! Join me, pick up a copy of Total Money Makeover today