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Well, it’s very chilly- currently 58 but should get down to 47 tonight, which has been typical these last few weeks. The sky is still clear and the grass dry, so its definitely Fall weather. During our frequent walks down to the Fremont Wild Oats area, (stop at Cafe Destino for soup, run some errands around Wild Oats-mail something out, pick up rice milk-,then onto the library to see what movies have been returned, so on), we were able today to pick up acorns and bright purple and yellow leaves: the first bits of Autumn inviting us to collect and admire.

I never share much about the specifics of my marriage or finances or relatives, etc, but I wanted to write today about our recent goals of getting out of debt, saving, financial freedom. Like many young parents, esp in college, we used credit cards to keep us afloat through our years of less than 30,000 combined (at least 4 years of our 5 year marriage), and in the end we ended up with a large amount of debt. We now pay minimum payments towards debt reduction that totals 25% of our monthly income, and about half of it is high interest cards (some student loans, some personal loans). At last Hubby has found work and is now working 2 jobs for us to recover from the move and unemployment of this past summer, and we have been struck with the conviction that we must get a handle on it while we are finally making a little income. Through a dear friend of mine, we were able to apply for a credit counseling service that does the one monthly, low interest payment type of thing. It turns out this will be incredibly helpful, reducing our minimum payments and, because we are “friends and family” we have no fees whatsoever. Because we are saving so much that would have been eaten up in high interest, we can put extra on our monthly payments and get out of debt sooner. Not including student loans, it will take us 4 years, max. Incredible, isn’t it? (Incredible as in- audacious, unbelievable, inconceivable- that a young couple with college education would spend the next 4 years climbing out of consumer debt.) Ah, America- delicious consumer market dream-turned-nightmare. With a little bail-out from friends or family here and there, we have managed to pay our bills when they are due and stay afloat, but barely.

Simultaneously, we tried to go to Imago Dei (our church) Financial Peace University, and although we found the 4 hours on Sunday morning to be a little long for our family day, in the end there are some sunday school conflicts with having children in both services so we have opted to continue educating ourselves and try to go without FPU at this time. In the meantime, I’ve paid my very last overdraft fee for a large corporate bank that cares SQUAT for the little guy, and have opened a savings and checking account with an internet bank, ING Direct. With them, there are never NSF fees (because of the automatic line of credit opened in case this happens) and the interest earned on the savings is 4.3 and on checking, 3.8 (for the balance we have in there, if you have more balance, you earn more). Then I grabbed a home budget tool off Kiplinger.com and with as liberal and comfortable figures as I could apply to each expenditure, including tithing (charitable/giving) and saving (automatically out of each paycheck and into that 4.8% savings account) combined 20+% of our income, we should still have $400 dollars a month left over.

This is where I just can’t believe it. With spending money, haircut money, every little thing accounted for, we should still have $400 lying around some where at the end of every month. Now, granted, our income has only been double in the last month, so September has been more like damage control month than starting your goals month. However, this was such an eye opener that I must track where our money is going and use the darn ENVELOPES and CASH like every thing I’ve ever read has said to do. If we truly have left over after tithing, saving, bills, debt, and even renting movies and drinking Starbucks here and there (budgeted for, using cash), then I will be floored. It means that when friends need funding for a missions or we feel called to give some other way, we actually CAN. It means if we need to visit family in Florida once a year, we can save this and actually buy the tickets. It’s just crazy.

I also worked out how we will save that emergency fund of 3 months worth of income (min.) by the end of 2008 using the compound interest in our savings account along with automatic transfers off the top of every paycheck into savings. One year, no surprises, we could actually have our emergency fund filled. This has never, I repeat NEVER, appeared possible for us. I’ve read books before, Suzie Orman and who nots, we’ve done coupons and budgets and snowball effect and bla bla, but for some reason or another- nothing really worked. Yet I’m very hopeful that discipline this time around will stick.

Discipline: the word brings definite negative connotation to my spirit. Perhaps by a church (shoot, an entire sub-culture of Christianity) that defined discipline for me for so long as the “walk the straight and narrow” road of a “disciple”. Read your bible and pray for hours, don’t do anything “wrong” (including kiss your husband before marriage, lol- which I was NOT able to abide!), so on. It took the joy out of living and created a sense of shame at every inkling of rebellion and questioning. When I was involved at a Presbyterian church in Lakeland, the emphasis was the opposite- there is NO mold, it messaged, your identity is in Him. The rules and rituals were not glorified, in fact maybe they were in some ways looked down upon, particularly if done with a heart that was trying to please God, to be enough for God, so God would approve or love you more. It was a great blessing to be around those who practiced unconditional love and extended grace in a very real way. But still, I came to see discipline as “legalistic” and shunned daily practices or boxes to squeeze into.

But I came across this quote, which I ironically wrote in my journal some time ago and had since completely forgotten, from Henri Nouwen, Catholic priest and writer:

“In the spiritual life, the word discipline means ‘the effort to create some space in which God can act.’ Discipline means to prevent everything in your life from being filled up. Discipline means that some where you are not occupied, and certainly not preoccupied. In the spiritual life, discipline means to create that space in which something can happen that you hadn’t planned or counted on.” (italics/bold added)

It struck me that in the regards to finances, discipline can be viewed much the same way. Discipline on how you spend and where your money goes creates ROOM, it means your cup is not completely dry, that you aren’t sucking the drops off the coffee table and paying high interest on your imbalance. It means you have SPACE in which “something can happen that you hadn’t planned or counted on”- another pregnancy, a broken leg, a family vacation you never thought you could take, a way to give to some one in need.

So, although this has become a slightly longer post than I intended, I have a feeling my journey with money and debt and spiritual applications could be useful to some of you, so I share in hopes it helps

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 26th, 2007 at 12:39 am and is filed under Current Events, Faith 'Flections, My Marriage, The Debt Drama