Family Friday #3: Embracing each other's hobbies

Update on goal: Our goal that we set was to get out of debt by 2015, I wanted to update you on our progress over this last week. Anthony has been busy looking for a second job that he could do part time in order to add a little income to our home and little output to our debts. He has had a few interviews so please keep him in your prayers. I have also decided to take on becoming a Thirty-One Consultant starting in August. I am hoping it is a profitable idea for me and it will also help me organize the house at a fraction of the price since I buy the stuff anyway! Also, I have been in touch with the financial assistance departments of Indiana University Health as well as Norton Hospital in order to find some reprieve from the medical bills. I have a few more hospitals to contact but I have paperwork printed for the two I mentioned above and am gathering documents to apply for the assistance. Please keep us in your prayers for grace!

Now, today I wanted to talk about something we do as a family that helps us spend time together and to really bond as a family. I am an avid reader and Anthony is a movie lover! We would like Max to be exposed to both things with appropriate boundaries of course. Since we love these things, we have started to do certain things together to foster that love in each other and in Max. First of all, Anthony and I always are reading a book together. We read a chapter each out loud at night so we can have a story brewing together to discuss. I value this time so much as it bonds us together and helps us have tons of stuff to talk about and chew up (depending on the book) It is not always a learning book but sometimes it is. Right now, we are reading a horror book actually and really enjoying it.

We also do this with movies, however...we spice it up a bit. We usually will theme a night to a movie including what we have for dinner. For example, if Lady & The Tramp is in store, we are having spaghetti and garlic bread for dinner. If (for a more adult theme) we are watching Forrest Gump, we are having Shrimp! This fun activity always has us thinking of movies we can theme to dinner and let's us enjoy a great movie together and foster Anthony's hobbies.

Sometimes, an even better thing we have done is read a book together and then, if the book is made into a movie..follow it up with movie theme night! It shows us both that we corporately enjoy story telling...one of us is just visual and the other more verbal. This is a very cost-effective way to spend time with your family for sure. We use the library to pick our books or Inklings (a used bookstore locally) and with movies we usually use our Netflix account (at $8.00 a month) or use a free rental code for redbox and I just budget the groceries around that idea.

What are your cost effective ideas to get your family together? I love new suggestions!

Family Friday #2: Making time for the family

Last week, I talked about how Anthony and I were determined to get out of debt by the end of 2015. This week we have been looking at our bills and trying to find ways to get some bills settled and help with financial services within hospitals in order to take care of some of the outstanding medical bills. This week, I wanted to talk about something that is very important to our family. It is the designated family time that we carve out.

When Anthony started working for Starbucks, we had been through a 9 month period of unemployment. We had really struggled through several commission only jobs and looked forward to the 60% income that the Unemployment Benefits brought us. Through that experience, we lost a lot of amenities. By that I mean, we were not able to run off to Vegas every weekend for a little road trip, we gave up our Uverse TV, we cut our cell phone packages and we moved out of our 1 bedroom apartment into a friend's guesthouse which they lovingly let us live in rent free for 6 months (Anthony did things here and there to help them out) It was a hard 9 month period.

Although there were a lot of losses during that, there was a huge gain and that was that Anthony and I learned to put our family first. When he was working for a large company that was a lucrative position and made us plenty of money, we sometimes let our family obligations go to the back burner for work. Anthony worked 5-6 days a week at about 14 hours a day. I barely saw him and it was building resentment. Luckily, we did not have kids then because it would have taken even a greater toll on me and a lot on a child.

We decided when we spent those 9 months of unemployment together that we really enjoyed each other's company so much and missed each other deeply during the 3 years Anthony had worked that job. It was grueling. We drew a line in the sand in that time period that we would always mark out a day of the week that others could not touch. We would not let family members ask us to do favors that day, we would not hang out with friends that day, we would not take work that day (even if we desperately needed money) because we had to make our marriage the top priority. Now, we have to make our family a top priority.

You may have heard me mention Married Mondays before and that is what Anthony and I call our day. We are not available to anyone else but each other on Mondays. There have been minimal times when we have had to do doctor appointments or something else important on a Monday but we always go together and make a day of it. We use this day to spend time together and sometimes it means that we do fun things like drive in the country, order pizza, watch a movie, go out to dinner, etc.. but sometimes it means we work on a household project together. Either way, we do not let others take this time from us. I would advise anyone that wants to have a tight knit, happy family to carve out time for it. Whether that means you have a sacred day like ours, a time of day (like 3 hours before bedtime), or even every other week...keep that time for your family and don't let others intrude upon it and overall...do not commit to anything on that day without the permission of all family members. Families need time together. They don't stay together without it!

Family Friday #1: Family Goal!!

Fridays are dedicated to talking about things that are family topics. This can vary greatly from week to week and include a lot of different components. This can be family activities, family topics, family goals, family updates, etc...

Family Friday topic of the day is the Get out of Debt Plan!

Anthony and I have been through a lot in our short marriage of 5 years. We have lost a child to a late term miscarriage, lost a very lucrative job to the recession, 9 months on unemployment after said loss, moved across the country, and although a HUGE blessing...had a little guy 2 months early that required a month in the NICU. These have all been huge financial hardships and created a mess of debt. Some of it is "good debt" like my student loans and anything that made Max get through being early and other things are "bad debt" like having to let bills go in fear of losing our home during 9 months of unemployment. Through the process, we sought financial counseling. Some of that counsel was wise counsel and some of it really wasn't.

All of that to explain one of our family goals. Anthony and I want to be debt free (except for my student loans) by the end of 2015. Since this is a post about family and that is one of our goals, I thought that once in a while I would update on here how much debt we have eliminated through our plan and give you our plan for getting out of it.

First of all, there is always a plan for us to GIVE more. It's extremely hard to sit and complain about your lot in life when you are giving to people in more need than yourself. It is a great way to get perspective as you are downsizing your own life. The other plan is to use 20% of our income towards paying off our debts. That does not seem like a lot but there are other family expenses that really consume the other 70% and then the 10% that we always want to give from.

Another part of this plan was to downsize our life considerably. This included, but is not limited to, eating ALL of our meals at home, shopping from the Sale ads and budgeting $40/week for Groceries. It's hard but I am almost a genius at this by now. Another thing we did was cut off our cell phones. We were paying $200 a month for our cell phone plan with unlimited data packages. We have since come to the end of our contracts and did not renew them and allowed the phones to be shut off. That was a hard stuff for both us being that we are into our technology! We also are getting rid of our storage unit in California (losing some items is part of this as well) but my mentality is that if we haven't used any of these items in almost 2 years now, we probably don't need it! We also don't have luxuries like cable in our house. We stick with Netflix which is reasonable and unlimited so it allows us to enjoy appropriate tv with no commercials.

We also run a home based business with Scentsy, are considering adding another home based business so that I can work from home, and I take tutoring clients both locally and over the phone from California. These are all sacrifices we are willing to make in order to get ourselves to a healthy place financially.

THE WHY....

Most people would say something like wanting to buy a home, a new car, etc...as the reason they wanted to be out of debt. For Anthony and myself, we have two 12 year old vehicles still running fantastically and they are paid off. If we purchase another vehicle (such as a more roomy SUV) it will be used and we will not be taking on a new loan. We are not planning to buy a home for several more years due to having a place we really love that is VERY reasonable in cost. Our plan for getting out of debt is to teach our son to be a responsible steward and not to purchase things he cannot afford or overextend himself. Also, we want to teach the lesson of giving and enjoying family and experiences over THINGS.

I will be updating on this goal as often as I see fit and the next time I update, I am hoping to have a number of how much debt we have accrued with collections bills, credit cards, and medical bills. It is probably a large number but I believe that God will bless our efforts and soon enough I will be paying much more than 20% on debt and be able to get out of debt by the end of 2015! Please join with us in prayer on this goal. What are some of your family goals?