Another long post….

Last night I realized I was late on paying my 2nd quarter estimated taxes for my business and Brian’s social security. I don’t know where my life is going, but 2008 is FLYING BY ME and I can’t seem to keep up with anything! Even when I think I’m doing better, I realized last night I wasn’t. I had missed a bunch of transactions, gotten business expenses confused, forgotten to include them, had two checks I marked cleared in Quicken back in March that never in fact went through…

Brian is back in full-force for our financial partnership. For the last year, I’ve really been doing it alone. In some ways I preferred it because it made me feel more in control and I felt like I could fudge categories and move money around to make things work with our budget. But once we realized how bad we’ve been doing with our Dave Ramsey plan that we’ve been on for almost 3 years now, he insisted to become more involved. My control-freakness resisted, but I know it’s better. Our finances are so complicated, it’s hard for one person to do it all alone, and I have been struggling without his support (evidenced by last nights “this-will-only-take-five-minutes-to-pay-this-estimated-tax-bill-but-crap-it-actually-took-two-freaking-hours-cuz-I-messed-up-stuff” episode). So the last two times we’ve done our banking, Quicken transaction downloading, he’s been there.

As frustrating as it is (we usually get in at least one tiff while doing our finances – although we’ve definitely improved from the past) I know it is VITAL that we are together on everything. We always have been in spirit, but I find for us it’s not enough. It has to be physical awareness of transactions going in and out and where we are spending and how we are managing. He is even amazing at helping me manage my business account. He just gets things more quickly and helps me sort through the confusion. So, despite that it’s irritating and I’ve had to give up some control, I pray that this renewed togetherness for our financial situation is only beneficial in the long-run.

I did a gazelle budget yesterday, and realized if we put a certain amount on our loans, which is possible if we cut way back on clothing, home stuff (my weakness), entertainment and dining out, we could have our student loans paid off ONE YEAR from this month. In other words, July 09 = freedom. The problem? This budget includes no money for anyone else except our compassion child and our monthly tithe. Only a small budget for a few gifts here and there, and no extra budget for Christmas unless I start including a potential $40/mo from now till December which could throw us back a bit. And of course anything could go wrong. A car could break down, we could have another accident (which is likely with our luck), someone could get very sick, the furnace could break… things happen. We have our emergency fund and have for years, and it is truly a God-send to have it there – but when you draw out of it, you have to replenish it the next month, so you still see that decrease.

It all feels so selfish sometimes, this getting out of debt thing. But the goal is that when this happens, we can then BE generous and BE helpful and give abundantly!! I want more than anything to be that person that is able to give to others and help on a whim. Right now we are still the recipients of that generosity from others sometimes and are soooo thankful for it.

We can’t take the Financial Peace course in the fall because it falls on a Sunday morning 9:15 and with worship team, and Brian’s job, we are doomed to never be able to do any Sunday school classes. It’s ok though because we know the principles and the new buzz going around the church for everyone can help us stay on track as well. I need to whip out my book and finish it – I never got to the ending sections. I’ll keep listening to my Dave Ramsey podcasts too for inspiration :)

Thanks for reading the money post. :)

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 at 2:11 pm and is filed under freelance, life, marriage, money, stress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.