11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Another however I've relied on lately is Matthew 6:34
Just knowing that God spoke these makes me at ease whenever things aren't going the greatest. We've had quite the financial battle this year. It actually started last year when we were told they were taking away the old bonus program so our income in 2009 dropped $10,000. We were told we would give a lump sum to their employees at the beginning of 2010. We thought that would be better until we discovered the way it was going to work resulting in only a bonus of $2,000 in March. Yeah, not good when you have 2 major surgeries at $2,500 to pay for and also have 6 kids to take care of. Not knowing that back in December during enrollment we opted to do Flexible Spending to pay for some of the medical woes. We chose $2,500, the cost of 1 surgery. We didn't really think that through to well because that dropped his paycheck $200 a month. LOL! We didn't take into account that our insurance went up $70 a month too with no raise in sight. Needless to say, we've ran up a credit card just to get through each month this year. It's not been good.
So trying to take God on his word we've done what we've thought would be the best to help our situation. We took every bit of our tax return and paid off the van we owe so that got rid of a $330 a month payment, paying it off in less than 2 years. Praise the Lord! We figured getting rid of the $60-70 in interest we lose a month would be best. Now we just owe on our house and bills. I'm sure our regular bills will appreciate being paid on time once again. lol
I have always been into couponing and refunding however this year I have stepped it up a bit. I've now made a goal to my husband that I want to try refunding $100 a month. That's a HUGE goal but so far for April I'm at $82 and I have a few more I will be doing!! If I count the $20 gift card my husband got that puts me at $102. ;) I'm only buying things that I can match up with sales and get for really cheap besides meat and other things that we NEED to have to survive. I might have spent $300 on all our food, supplies, etc. last month so that's helped.
Dave has let his boss know that we are really not doing so well since this bonus change and with the additional cost of insurance so his boss is now trying to help us by keeping my man out in the field making sales. Thank God for that man because we actually got one of the best checks we've gotten in more than a YEAR coming to us on Friday! He's told Dave he needs to be on the road 3 days a week so we're both very excited about this.
Our goal last year was to add on to our home making it a 5 bedroom and getting a bigger vehicle however right now we're just trying to get through this extra debt. We can cram into our little van and live fine in our nice shoebox. lol I am very thankful that God has provided even though our situation has not been ideal. I know there's alot of people that ask how the heck we do it with 1 income and 6 kids and honestly it hadn't been hard until this year. I think God's point was to show us all about self discipline. I needed that kick in the rear to get me back into the frugal seat.
Dave worked the next morning, luckily he had another work truck here at the house for another employee and so he just used it. I had to take all the kids to Damien's soccer game. He's starting to understand it a bit more but he's more about socializing with friends as you can see. lol
Saturday afternoon after my last attempt of getting Kmart doubles there were TONS of sirens going off during my shopping trip. I figured there had been a bad accident or something. Came home and found out through Facebook that one of my good highschool friends had been murdered. I actually found out BEFORE they announced he was murdered that, that was indeed how his death occured. Someone has posted RIP Josh and then someone emailed and said they heard he was stripped and beat to death with a bat. All they said for 3 days was that it may be a homicide. It is very upsetting that his death appears to be been bragged about, gotten around town first. You can imagine his killers were caught quickly. They just announced today some more details. He was asked to come to an apartment so he did. People were hiding in the apartment, they duct taped him first, ambushed him and beat him to death and then stuck him back in his car a few blocks away. Tomorrow we go to his funeral. I am dreading it so much.
I couldn't even face going to church the next day because I knew it would be too emotional. Dave suggested we skip out and take the kids to the zoo so that's what we did. After thinking so much about Josh's kids we just wanted to spend the day with ours and remember how blessed we are. 