(If you haven’t checked out the previous posts, here’s Part I and Part II.)

“Wealth from get-rich-quick schemes quickly disappears; wealth from hard work grows over time.” (Proverbs 13:11 NLT)

In order to work our way out of debt, we had to think about money in a totally different way. For the longest time, I’d viewed money as many things, both “good” and bad:
~ therapy
~ controlling
~ tricky
~ confusing
~ the end-all, be-all
~ mine

Once I realized that I truly owned nothing in this world…but was instead a steward of the wealth in God’s storehouse…my outlook changed tremendously. Tithing became obvious….a joy, really. I let my brain rule my purchasing decisions instead of letting my feelings do the job. I relinquished my feelings of entitlement and instead sought to learn from others around me….how could I make it stretch, save it more and spend it less, handle it in a way that pleased God?

Here are some things I began to do in those early, early days as we were adjusting to one income and a child on the way. Many of them (most of them) I still do today. By doing these things, I’m not being cheap….I’m being wise about and mindful of our resources. Living this way has given us a more stable foundation, strengthened our marriage, and changed my perspective on just about everything:

Regarding a budget:
~ Make one! It’s not easy seeing all of the numbers laid out on that white page….but it’s necessary for clarity, as well as for planning ahead. It’s also accountability; you can’t argue with what’s staring back.
~ Create a zero-based budget, as outlined by Dave Ramsey. What does this mean? Your income minus expenses equal zero…every single month. Anything “left over” goes into savings or other mutual funds.
~ Use cash for household purchases. Research shows that people find it harder to spend cash than pay by check or credit card.

Regarding grocery purchases:
~ Make a weekly grocery list according to the sales at your favorite store(s) and stick to it. If you shop more than once a week or without a list, you’ll spend more. I used to, and I did.
~ For groceries, let the sales guide your food choices. Plan your menus by what’s on sale that week. Don’t just look at the store flyer….there are websites that can help you zero in on the best deals of all. I love Southern Savers…it helps me find the best sales nearby. Another top favorite is Grocery Freak.
~ Cook and eat at home more. When we first began sticking to a budget, we didn’t eat out. At all. Even for “brown bag” staff meetings when we both worked at our church, we were the only ones eating food truly made and brought from home. We dine out some now, but it’s mainly reserved for special occasions or date nights. (It’s crazy to think that you can buy a week’s worth of groceries for the cost of taking your family out to dinner just twice.)
~ Eating frugally doesn’t mean eating poorly. There are tons of healthy, cheap recipes out there….and when spring and summer hit, take advantage of local produce stands or farmers’ markets!

Regarding other household purchases:
~ We buy most of what we need with our groceries. This includes paper products, toiletries, and office supplies. We stock up when they’re on sale, and always use coupons. Since our favorite grocery store doubles coupons, we come out cheaper than if we’d gone to Walmart or Target.
~ Not going to Walmart and Target weekly has saved us TONS. I couldn’t go into Target without spending less than $100, even if I only had aluminum foil and diapers on my list. Those endcap displays, clearance racks, purse racks, and DVD bargains jump out at you. If you don’t see them in the first place, you don’t know they exist…and you don’t buy them.
~ When I shop for clothes for our family, I go with a list of specific items. (“I need a black shirt, khaki pants, new running shoes, and socks…. Gardner needs some PJs and some button-up shirts.”) Again, no getting swayed by elaborate store displays, cute mannequins, and pushy salespeople. You know what happens…you end up with a cart full of new clothes, but then realize when you get home that nothing matches anything (or anything else in your closet, either).

Regarding home services:
~ Reassess every 6 months how much use and value you’re really getting from various home services…things like cable, internet, newspaper subscriptions, even lawn care. Chip off what you can or think you aren’t getting your money’s worth for.
~ Call and ask for discounts. It never hurts to ask!

This is just the tip of the iceberg. So, so many lifestyle changes have led us to where we are today: Financially free, not under the bondage of credit cards or student loans, and with an emergency fund. I owe so many things to our sacrifices made at the beginning….first and foremost, my ability to stay home and raise our children as I’ve always dreamed of doing. A sacrifice here, a relinquishment there…..it was all expressly and utterly worth it.

As Dave Ramsey says (and it is to true): “Live like no one else….so one day, you can live like no one else.”

(If you didn’t read Part I, click here.)

Little did I know that, in just a few short months, everything I believed about money and how to handle it was going to be tested in the fire.

Ken was called into full-time ministry, and we made plans to move back to our hometown. (More about this decision and its effects in a later post.)

Suddenly his salary was cut in half and I totally lost mine. I won’t go into detail and tell you all of the financial pitfalls we had to dig ourselves out of, or about the struggles we faced returning to one income only. I will say that it wasn’t easy, and our faith was tried more than it had ever been, financially speaking, since we’d married three years before.

And all of this on top of my feeling called to motherhood shortly after our move home? This made for even more of a permanent quizzical look on our faces. “How on earth are we going to pull this off?” we thought. Good thing we didn’t need to — God had it already.

One of Ken’s highest spiritual gifts is faith….and conveniently, it’s one of my very lowest. We’ve been able to see God move and work in our finances since 2003 in ways that we cannot explain. We took initiative…we changed daily habits, established a budget (ugh!) and took a (Dave Ramsey) Financial Peace University class through our church.

We modified our lifestyle and it paid off exceedingly: I am excited to say that as soon as my car is fully paid off, we are debt free.

(Stay tuned for Part III, where I’ll share some of the ways I amended our lifestyle and how I have learned to release money’s control of us over these past few years.)

I have such a torrid past when it comes to my relationship with money. My feelings towards money have bounced back and forth between lack of respect, utter fear, complete adoration, and apathy. I’ve hoarded it, spent it, ignored it, worried about it, obsessed about it, and feared having it (or not having it). Money caused way, way too much drama in my life for many years.

Growing up, I never really was a saver. I had a piggy bank that never got all the way full. I sure did envy and respect friends who could save up for coveted things, though I never believed I could do the same thing myself. A high school job at a department store that required a credit card in order to obtain an employee discount guaranteed my entry into the world of debt. College came, and with it living on my own and making more of my own choices. I’m sad to say that much of my extra spending money during those four years went towards things like veggie burgers, PopTarts, coffee drinks, CDs, concert and movie tickets.

I married Ken and was in utter bliss…for many reasons, of course, but one of them this: I was marrying a chemical engineer! His start-out salary was outstanding….and the ladder only had one way to go: Up. The first six months we were married, I happily spent the money he brought home. After all, our apartment needed interior decoration and our table needed decadent meals on it every evening.

We bought our first house ten months later — a modest, starter home that needed minimal fix-ups. Things were perfect. That is…until, just six months later, we were forced to move two hours away from family and friends due to a plant closure and job relocation.

I was distraught. No…I was crushed. It wasn’t what we wanted to do, but it was what we felt we had to do. A job away from “home” was better in our eyes than no job at all, so we moved away. We bought a brand new home this time, and I found a job that paid well.

But our house was just a shell. It was empty. It needed something. What did it need? More furniture? More electronic gadgets? More clothes in my closet? Paycheck after paycheck went to obtaining these fixtures…yet the void within me was never filled. I felt no guilt purchasing whatever my heart desired. After all, we had no children yet. We both had secure jobs. We were bored. And it made me….happy.

I had fallen head over heels in to the trap of “retail therapy.” What my job, my husband, my house, my health, my wardrobe couldn’t give me, I tried to write a check for, tried to charge to a plastic card.

I remember one particularly bad day at work that left me distraught and frustrated. Instead of going straight home, my car seemed to drive itself right over to the shopping mall nearest my workplace. Within moments I was standing in a glossy aisle, staring straight at an endcap display of brand new handbags put out for spring. White. Linen. Leather straps. Houndstooth interior. Gorgeous. And only $79.50.

“I have never, ever bought something right off of a season’s new line before. It’s so pretty. It’s so NEW. It looks like it was made for me. It smells good. It’s shiny. And after all….I did have a horrible day. This will be my salve, the little gift that makes it all better.”

And with that justification held as tightly in my grasp as the handles of the Macy’s shopping bag, I walked out of that store that night with a new handbag, wondering why I didn’t feel better. Not in the slightest.

Stay tuned for Part II….

In case you’ve been wondering,I haven’t abandoned The Real Me Challenge. I have been planning and brainstorming the future posts to go in it, with plans to publish them after the Christmas holidays. Any I post before then will be a bit, well, lighter.

And here is the first installment of that, where I let you see rare and candid glimpses of my early childhood, where my quirkiness blossomed in full form and my insatiable love for the camera was obvious to all.

An unfortunate cowlick derails the perfect Mary Lou Rhetton/Dorothy Hamill haircut.

The hot pink Strawberry Shortcake swimsuit undermines my hefty attempts to look ferocious.

You’d be hard-pressed to get me this excited about riding on the log flume nowadays.

It was all fine and well when I asked to wear these get-ups on Halloween….quite another thing, however, when I asked to also wear them to school.

A very rare look into my after-school job as a cat seamstress and set designer.

I don’t exactly know whether I’m more embarrassed about playing with Barbies at the age of 10…or my HAIR.

No words.

When they say your wedding day will be a blur, they weren’t kidding. Yet what I didn’t hear as much about is how the birth of your first child (and the two to three subsequent days thereafter) would be just as much of a blur.

While still in the hospital, I experienced an euphoric feeling that can only be explained by 1) the lingering effects of the anesthesia and other meds, 2) the surrealism of being a patient in a hospital for the first time in a long, long time, and 3) the complete and utter consumption with a new little person who measures just 19-1/2″ long.

I had prepared in many ways for the birth and the coming home for the first time. The carseat had been securely fastened into the Jeep for over a month. I had meals prepared ahead and frozen. I had sent home from the hospital one of G’s swaddling blankets for our two cats to smell and become familiar with (since they were, in essence, the “older siblings,” so to speak).

The coming home was glorious. It was a bright, sunny day, three days after G’s arrival, and the weather was just beginning to show the slight crisp snap of autumn. I don’t think I turned around and looked at the road one time as Ken drove us home….I craned my neck and watched G’s tiny feet, all I could see of him in his teeny tiny carseat/carrier contraption.

Recovering from a c-section, physically, was a bit more painful than I’d expected. I was glad we only had one stair in our whole house, a step-down into our bedroom. I gladly let family help with laundry loads and lifting. I enjoyed the five or six consecutive suppers cooked and brought to our doorstep by loving friends and family.

Breastfeeding was going exceedingly well, which pleased me so much. I didn’t dislike getting up for 2am and 5am feedings. In fact, I relished it. I got to snuggle with my little son AND watch all of the fantastic re-runs of 80s sitcoms that are never, ever on television during the daytime.

Yet little by little, the sleep deprivation that all parents do face did catch up with me. By the time G was 5 weeks old, most of the photos taken of me show dark circles under my tired eyes. Being sleepy tends to put a hazy fog over you, and I feel that fog clouded many of the sweet memories of day to day life with Little G that I might have held onto otherwise.

Days and nights became somewhat hard to distinguish between. Drained, I began to feel as if time was painfully slow at moving forward, yet at the same time, felt a sense of panic that it was all flying by too quickly. Quite the unexpected paradox.

Stay tuned for Part II…