4 Walls

Walls? What?

Kristen, I thought this was about money and debt and that kinda stuff, not walls.

Before I lose you, let me explain. There's this guy, I talk about him all the time, you might've heard of him. He goes by the name Dave, last name Ramsey. Ya, he's awesome. Has completely changed our lives and he has this idea that he calls the 4 walls. Basically it's a way to prioritize things and to make sure that the essentials are taken care of.

1. Shelter. Rent or mortgage, whatever you need to pay to keep a roof over your head.
2. Food. Your family needs to eat. Sometimes that means you're eating ramen and (gag me) macaroni and cheese but what's important is that you're eating.
3. Utilities. Make sure the lights and heat are on and the water is running. That's important.
4. Transportation. Keep gas in your car and if you have a car payment stay current. Don't forget insurance either. You need to have a car to get to your job to pay your bills. Does that mean you need a $40,000 car? Uh, I'm gonna say probably not but you do need cheap, reliable transportation.

When Greg and I were out of work we had to make some tough choices. And using this 4 wall plan made it easier for us to focus on what was most important. Sometimes when you're looking at all of the bills due it can just be overwhelming. Especially if you have credit cards or other loans. After all if you miss a payment or pay late, you'll probably get hit with a fee and other penalties but you need to take a step back and take care of essentials first. It doesn't make sense to be current on your credit cards but to not have food in the house. I'm definitely not advocating ignoring your debts. Don't read that into anything I have ever said or will ever say, if you created the mess you'd better clean it up! But you do need to be wise when you have limited resources.

Take care of essentials and then work towards paying the rest. Little by little you will get things under control.

I promise.

Surviving Unemployment: Part Two- The Parents

Here's part two in our series about surviving unemployment. The small company where Greg had been working decided that his position needed to be changed. Unfortunately he wasn't the right fit for the new position. This was actually okay because he had been passively looking for a new direction and was thinking that a change would be nice. We just hadn't been very serious about finding a new job until we were forced into that situation.

We immediately started shoveling everything into savings and just cut back in every way possible. When the first day of being unemployed came it was pretty scary but the experience was also not as bad as it could have been. And don't forget, I'm writing this based largely on my journal entries from that time so this isn't some looking back and forgetting the hellish details kind of list, this is real time reporting, sort of. Well, you know what I mean. On to the good stuff.

Oh, I should give you fair warning, this list is going to read like a motivational speech. I'm almost embarrassed to share but it's true, it's a pretty fool- proof plan.

So here we go. This is how we made surviving unemployment, well, survivable.

• Be grateful. We had a home. There was food in the fridge. Our kids were healthy. We still had each other. The list went on and on and the more we tried to be grateful, the more we had to be grateful for.
• Have some perspective. Yep we were out of a job. That sucked. But you know what's really awful? Being familiar with your local children's hospital. That's on a completely different level of awful. Stepping back and saying "yes, this is hard but the things that really matter (our children, our marriage, our faith), those are okay.
• But also accept that the situation is pretty awful. Our children were healthy, our marriage was solid and our faith had never been stronger but we were still really worried. Giving yourself permission to feel bad about your situation is okay.
• Cut back. We didn't eat out. We didn't buy new clothes. There were serious conversations about needs versus wants. Most things got classified as a want. We actually kept a running list titled "When Greg Gets a Job". All of those things that we didn't do or buy we would put on the list. I was looking at it the other day and it's pretty funny. We had put things on the list like dish towels and socks. New socks are nice but feeding your babies, that's better. 
• All work is worthy. As long as it's legal of course. What I mean is that sometimes we start to think that certain jobs are beneath us but I'm here to tell you that your mortgage company accepts your money whether it came from a full time job with benefits or stocking shelves overnight at the grocery store. While you're looking for work don't be afraid to take a temporary position to make ends meet.
• Pray. A lot. Before the loss we were very active in our church. We both held positions as teachers and leaders and we always tried to do our best. Our religion wasn't a Sunday only kind of thing but when all that we could do was turn everything over to God and ask for His help, well that took us to a whole different place in our spiritual life. I'm not saying that we're perfect saints now (ha, so far from it) but we have a deeper understanding of the mercy and goodness of God and His Son. 
• Accept when people want to help. Greg and I had prided ourselves on being people that gave instead of taking. People that we loved would offer to help and it was really hard to just say thank you and accept their offering. Being in a position of need forces you to learn humility and gratitude.
• Cling to each other. It wasn't Greg's fault that he lost his job. It wasn't mine that I couldn't make up the difference in our income. What was, was. Blaming each other would have been so destructive. There was never a time when we needed each other's love and support more. Our marriage is rock solid in a way that we never knew was possible.

As we went through our time of unemployment we would say to each other "I'm so glad that this happened". That's because it was a time for us to learn what was most important. We understand in a little deeper way how much we mean to each other. We know just how little we need to be happy. Our faith and our family and our marriage are different because of this experience. We needed something serious to wake us up to the reality of what we had. My hope as we go forward is that I won't ever lose that conviction of what matters most.

Surviving Unemployment: Part One- The Kids

This is the first post in a series about our experience with unemployment. It was almost exactly a year ago (January 2, 2014) that Greg lost his job and we started a new chapter of our lives. It actually was the greatest experience of our lives, and I'm not just saying that after the fact. You know how people will look back and say "that was hard, but it wasn't that bad", they're probably forgetting the actual hell they went through. I wrote in my journal pretty regularly during that time so I'm not just remembering things through rose colored glasses. But on to the important stuff.

I didn't grow up in a financially secure home. I remember being scared and embarrassed and afraid that we were going to be without essentials and maybe even homeless. I worried a lot. There were so many unknowns. That doesn't mean that my parents weren't good people, they were and are really great, there were just a lot of challenges. So I know what it's like to be a scared child. When we found out that we were losing Greg's job I immediately knew that we had to be certain that our children felt secure. They needed to know that they were going to be cared for.

Here are a few of the things that we did to help our little ones (and ourselves) feel safe during a really uncertain time.

• Keep the kids informed. When I paid the mortgage I would tell them that the house was taken care of. We showed them the food in the fridge. I told them that the utilities were paid. We also told them that our family was cutting back so there wasn't room for extras in the budget. When they talked about wanting to go somewhere or do something that cost money we would say things like "we only have a small amount of money and it needs to go to food or utilities or...", that helped them to see that the choices we were making were important and that were weren't just trying to be mean.
• But not too informed. They didn't need to know how much was in our bank account (I could tell you to the penny) or exactly how many months we could have lived on our savings (5 months and 2 weeks). It was not important for our kids to know what the numbers were, only that they were being cared for.
• Do fun things together. It was really tempting to only focus on essentials but we felt that some things needed to continue to happen even though they didn't make exact financial sense. So we kept making chocolate chip cookies and sometimes we would go to the dollar store and let the kids pick out a treasure. We also went on adventures to the park and to the library (and anywhere else that was free). We didn't let the horror of being unemployed suck all of the fun out of our life.
• Tell them about the good things. We had a neighbor that took our Suburban to his shop to do safety and emissions but when he brought it back it had new tires, an oil change, a tune up, a full tank of gas, registration plus the safety and emissions. He also forgot to bring the bill home. We anonymously received a gift card in the mail with a very large balance. A friend handed me cash and walked away. Every time something like that would happen, we made sure to tell the kids. We constantly talked about how blessed we were.
• Be grateful. Greg and I were and still are very grateful for this change that was forced on us and we made sure to talk to the kids about all of the good things that were happening. We listed all of the good in our lives and we tried to focus on that instead of the fear.
• But let them be scared and then reassure them over and over that they will be cared for. Sometimes the uncertainty of it all would get to the kids (and us) and make them (and us) act out. There would be fits and tears and screaming. We tried really hard to stay calm and to let them be upset. We would then list all of the ways that they were being cared for. We told them that the bills were paid. We reminded them of family and friends that would care for us if we needed their help. We reviewed all of the good things that had happened. Sometimes just acknowledging the fear made it go away.

Greg and I are certain that it was Divine intervention that helped us help our children through a scary time. We are not naturally that smart, we had a lot of help and thankfully we were able to make a challenging time a very special period of our lives. That's pretty incredible no matter how you look at it.