this. post.

I love Natalie over at Designer Bags and Dirty Diapers. Yesterday she really hit the nail on the head with this post. Wowzers. 

We've really been struggling with this lately too and as I read Natalie's words, I felt like she was ME. I realized my own problem months ago and truly got serious about it after I read Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover on the way to Fripp Island last August.

So, 8 months later - I'm happy to say I've already made several strides towards becoming debt free BUT I still have a little ways to go.

My main goals were to pay off the three measly insane interest rate credit cards that still have stupid college crap on them (as Natalie talked about. No student loans for me either, just ridiculous trips, studying abroad, etc... that racked up the debt) I didn't have a lot left that I owed so why was it taking me so long just to pay them off and be DONE? So frustrating. Well, I'm almost done. PTL.

Also, Chad has his own monthly savings, but I wanted to save $100 each month for Christmas Cash and to have if we want/need to splurge while on our Fripp vaca. [Because let's be serious, I do not need $1200 to spend at Christmas. Whoah. We don't buy those kind of gifts around here. Not even with Cade. Again, after Dave Ramsey's book ,we really learned to cut back] I've worked on this every month so far. Easy and a no brainer we should be doing every year.

Next up, we are REALLY trying to save to buy or build a house [That's the big debate. To buy or to build. More on that later]. We've been living in our house for five years, which I inherited from my dad before he even passed away. It has been an absolute blessing to us. It has allowed me to follow my dreams and continue with Sugar, during months when I never even brought home a paycheck. We have enjoyed it but 1. it's not our ideal house 2. we want a house that's our own, that WE worked hard for and can be proud of and 3. we are going to quickly outgrow it whenever we decide to have another child.

We've known all of this from the get go, so we've been looking for houses and land for about two years now but haven't had much luck, so it's easy to get frustrated. In an "instant gratification" kind of world, we want it now when we want it. BUT it doesn't work like that. God has already taught me patience a time or two. We must remember to be patient and be grateful for what He has already blessed us with, because we truly know we have more than enough!

and really, we can easily make our own house work for the rest of our lives if we wanted to. We do not NEED a new house. We may have linoleum floors, not a lot of square footage. We may not have granite countertops or a garage or an ice maker in the fridge for that matter (no, seriously. we use ice trays every. single. day) but so what? WE HAVE A HOUSE. We make it work.

Until we save up a good bit of money and find something that works for us, we will just be grateful to have a roof over our heads! I've got all I could ever need and more :)