Saying Goodbye

After almost 12 years, lots of highchair scraps and dog hair everywhere we said goodbye to our Katie dog. Most of the time we just called her Doggie, that's why our kids never went through that stage where they call every dog their own dog's name (our nephew called all dogs Ottos, seriously adorable) instead they thought every dog was named Doggie.

Katie was diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure last Tuesday. The vet told us she had 6 to 8 months left. Instead we got 6 days. On Monday morning she just couldn't breathe anymore, she was panting frantically and in so much pain. Greg and I made the painful decision to take her to the vet and end her life. The medicine that she was on just wasn't helping and she was miserable. We could tell that she was frightened and in pain.

Greg picked up the kids from school and gave them a chance to say goodbye. We cried and cried and then took her to the animal hospital. Greg carried her into that little room where we waited for the vet. I held her while they prepped her and then almost before we knew it she was gone. Finally she relaxed and she wasn't hurting anymore.

It's been heartbreaking. She was the best dog ever. So good to the kids, such a mellow animal. Just absolutely perfect. I've never considered myself a dog person and I'm still not a huge fan of them in general but Doggie, she was special. I keep looking over expecting to see her laying by my desk but there's just an empty spot where her blanket used to be.

You might wonder what this has to do with money and it doesn't. Except it kinda does. See never once during this process did we have to stop and figure out how to pay to care for our Katie dog. We have our little emergency fund so the thought of how to pay for all of this never crossed our minds. Instead we were able to take care of her, comfort the kids and know that even though our hearts are broken we're not worried about bounced checks or credit card bills.

That's why we're working so hard and budgeting so carefully. We want to be able to grieve and mourn and laugh and enjoy the moments that come our way rather than being burdened by debt. We are paying a really high price right now. Greg and I are both working very hard. We're budgeting every dollar that we get so that we have money for emergencies and so that we don't get behind on our bills. We're sacrificing like crazy right now so that the next time life happens how we're going to pay for the crisis isn't our first thought.

What Would You Do?

We need reader input. I'll tell you what happened and then you tell us, if these were your kids/ nieces and nephews/ random kids on the street how would you deal with this?

Grant charged Jennie $6 for 2 pieces of candy. Not even good candy, they were sour mints. The fact that it was lame candy isn't relevant, it's just funny (to us). She wanted the candy so she paid.

almost 2 years ago (so little!!)

We found out about this days after it had happened when we noticed that Grant had a serious stash of cash and Jennie was short. After interrogating the culprits we made Grant give $3 back and Jennie just had to forfeit the rest.

So tell us, were there any lessons we missed in this? Would you have handled it differently? Having 5 kids hasn't made us experts at hardly anything, it just means that we have lots of chances to mess up.

Rookie parenting for the win!!

Give a little, get back a TON!

Give money away so that you can keep more in the end.

Sounds like a paradox to me. Or a crazy tax law.

Greg and I (in our debt elimination stage of life) faithfully donate the first 10% of our income to the church that we attend. We've done that since we started earning money long before we were even married. It's never been a question, we pay our tithing first and that's just what we do.

Now does that mean it's easy? Some people will tell you that it's not difficult and it sort of isn't all that hard but when you're counting every penny it can still be difficult to give that money away and to expect nothing in return. Except here's the funny thing, we've received more than we ever gave away. No, we don't get a check at the end of every year reimbursing us for the tithing that we paid. I don't mean that kind of benefit. There have been more intangible things.

Like healthy babies. And kids that have stayed healthy. Greg worked 2 jobs and went to school AND got really good grades. I've had 5 children and stayed (mostly) sane. Our marriage is strong, we actually like each other. Our faith and our belief is rock solid. Our debt is going away and somehow we keep finding extra money to throw at this beast.

I wrote the first draft of this post on Tuesday night and then Wednesday morning something crazy happened. The fuel pump in the Suburban went out, dead. Like side of the road, call a tow truck dead. But are you ready for the amazing part? It happened after I had been to work, after I had dropped the kids off at school and on the side of the road. It wasn't while I was rushing to get somewhere, it wasn't in the middle of an intersection, it actually was right by the school during the morning drop off rush. That meant that as I was sitting on the side of the road trying to figure out what to do I started to get phone calls and texts asking if I was okay. A friend stopped and picked up Maggie and me, she even happened to have an extra car seat. Coincidence? Nope. The mechanic gave me the grand total and by a weird series of events we had just that much extra sitting in our checking account. That NEVER happens.

I credit all of this to divine intervention*.

See all of the money that comes through our hands, that's not really our money. It's God's and He is letting Greg and I be stewards of a little part of what He has. All that He asks it that we pay 10% back to Him and then the 90% that is left is our responsibility to manage wisely. When we pay our tithing we are saying to Him that we trust that He will help us to make up the difference. Somehow we have been able to do more with the 90% that is left then we could have if just left to ourselves.

I don't understand God's math but I understand that He loves me. I know that He blesses my efforts when I try to follow His word. I know that He rewards His profitable servants.

So yes, tithing is our first obligation but the funny thing is that it's not really an obligation, it's more like an investment with a crazy rate of return. That sounds like a good plan to me.

PS- I hold my beliefs very dear and I also respect your right to believe the way you choose. If you disagree that's okay but please be respectful.

*Sometimes awful things happen to really good people who do all the right things, I don't understand that part of God's plan. But I do know one thing, God knows His plan and He loves each of His children. When I get to heaven I am going to ask why heartache has to happen but until then I know that my Savior came to earth and died so that all of that heartache, well, it's gone. He takes care of that.

Valentine's Day, our version

Alternate titles for this post could have been "Sometimes we put down our calculators" or "How to have fun with your family without going insane" or maybe "Valentine's Day: don't buy into the mass hysteria because you can show people you love them without spending a ton of money and it's a fake holiday anyways". But I felt like that last one might have been a little wordy...

Sure we love budgeting around here and squeezing all that we can out of our budget and thinking of every possible way to save/ make money (right now the kids are rooting for a garage sale) but we still like to have a good time. You know, in a budget friendly sort of way of course. We're also pretty big on family traditions. But they have to be the low key, no stress kind because my tolerance for mess and large projects is about nil. 

I also sort of hate the idea of a holiday where you are forced to buy crappy chocolate and overpriced flowers and spend 2 hours waiting in line to eat in a restaurant with a million other couples while you stare lovingly into your better half's eyes. Ya, I can do that any day and I don't need a stupid made up holiday to remind me how much I love my husband. Valentine's Scrooge? Perhaps.

But what I do love is my family. I like spending time with them and I like creating simple traditions. Greg found this idea a few years ago and we've made it our own. We call it Cupid's Cafe. We move the table into the living room and make it look fancy (no tablecloths though, toddlers + tablecloths= bad idea). We create a menu with 9 options but the names of the menu items don't give you any clue what you're ordering. Last year the menu items were names of Beanie Boos (and if you don't know what a Beanie Boo is then count yourself lucky). We have 3 rounds of ordering so the kids pick 3 things off of the menu and that's their first course. Of course because they don't know what they're ordering they end up with things like a napkin, a plate and dessert. Or pizza, a cup and the appetizer. It's pretty hilarious. One year Anna ordered a fork, a plate and a napkin for her first course. She laughed through the first round (and was really grateful to get some food on the second course).

I got smarter last year and let the kids make the menus (hence the Beanie Boos) and set the table. That meant that all we had to do was move the table, make the meal and of course Greg and I were the servers. The kids got the biggest kick out of ordering a Pugsley, a Nacho and a Waddles, the belly laughter is the best! It is the easiest celebration ever but it's something the kids look forward to all year long. Jennie is in charge of the menus this year and she's been working on them since before Christmas.

I also really like that we're teaching our kids that the best kind of love is found in your home with your family. I hope that as they grow and get into the teenage angst time of their lives that they will have these things to cling to, I hope they will remember that things and stuff and temporary relationships don't matter. Rather it's what's important; like your family and working towards a goal and loving the time that you have together.

PS- I do love some good dark chocolate and I'm a sucker for fresh flowers, I just don't want someone to buy them for me because some marketing campaign told them they have to. Of course if you want to just bring them over because you like me... well, I'll give you my address.

PPS- None of the pictures above have anything to do with this post, except of course that they are our children and we like them and it makes us happy when they are happy. Other than that, no relevance at all.

The B Word

You know, the one. The one that you hear people say and you scream and cover your ears. That one.

I'll whisper it to you.

Budget.

I hated doing the budget. First of all, I had to do it by myself and there was never enough money to make everyone happy. I figured that life would just be easier if I just paid everything and then hoped for the best.

You can imagine how that worked out.

I also hated feeling controlled. Doing the budget meant that I wouldn't be able to go to the store and just spend money. It meant that there wasn't any money to just blow. I preferred the spend what you want first, then try to pay the bills, then move money that supposed to stay in the emergency fund to cover things like the mortgage when you're in a crisis. At least I got what I wanted before I had to face reality.

Pretty grown up, I know.

It's scary to see what your finances look like in black and white but here's the crazy thing, it's usually not as bad as you think it is. You know when your kid won't eat dinner because they're like "it's yucky" and you know that if they just tried it they would like it? Doing a budget is the same thing, we always imagine it to be more painful then it is. But I couldn't figure that out, oblivion was a better plan.

So is hoping someone else will take care of things but I'm pretty sure that's not a solid plan.

But fortunately life threw us a few fastballs and it knocked some sense into us. Now I'm a budget nerd. I check our written plan several times a week and right now I could tell you exactly how much money is in which account. Like I said, Nerd.

So what changed? I didn't get a brain transplant and my personality didn't change but I finally realized that all the experts were right. Having a written plan means that you have more money to spend, not less. It takes away the stress and the worry. It makes money fun again.

It took us a few months to really get the hang of things, we (meaning Greg and I working together) made our original plan and then adjusted categories as we went along. At first our grocery budget was pulling a Goldilocks, too high, then too low and now, just right. We tried to be crazy conservative and didn't budget any money to blow and that didn't work, one or both of us would start feeling a little twitchy and the next thing you knew our plan was out of whack again. So we began to budget blow money, that's money that we each get and we don't have to be accountable for, it's just ours to well, blow.

We're Financial Peace University grads and we think that the FPU budgeting forms are the easiest to use but it really doesn't matter what you use as long as you spend every dollar on paper that you make BEFORE you do any real spending. If you have given every dollar a place to go, you'll suddenly realize that you have more than you imagined.

Don't forget, if you have something you'd like us to address we'd love to hear from you. You can comment below or send us an email.