To Sell or Not To Sell

That is the question.

We have made a promise to each other and ultimately to God that we would not borrow money for a car. I mean we never sat down and said to each other or God I promise I will never borrow money for a car, but it was very implied. When I returned from Afghanistan and we sold the car I really thought, we can do this, we can have one vehicle. Then as I always do I started browsing the internet looking for that perfect deal. I found it, we did it, and now we feel horrible. The perfect deal should have involved cash, but we did not do that.

I feel as I post these things on here that my feelings are somewhat bi-polar. You know, I can feel one way one day and be certain, then in the flash of a light I am on the other side of the fence. The goal is to be debt free and only borrow money for a house. We have no need to buy a house right now, so that is really not even in the question.

This goes even beyond logic. Let me tell you why... Logically you can make just about make anything make sense. You can rationalize things to death and then in some twisted crazy way they all make sense. I do not care about logic. Logically we are very successful. I have a great career, I have a good retirement with this company. I can retire early enough to build a solid second career. I am on pace to be debt free by the time I am 35 years old and we have wonderful family relationships. (with extended family as well as immediate family) We are blessed beyond measure.

But,

You knew there was going to be a but right?

But, we are uneasy about our selves because we just borrowed money to buy a car. All be it a used car well within our means, but we borrowed. Cars are my weakness. Everyone has a weakness, cars are mine. I love them. I really love them. I work on them at work, I clean them at home, I love driving anything that has wheels, I love the sounds, smells, and feel of cars. ESPECIALLY trucks. I wish this was not the case, and if I can get it under control I think we will make money with cars some day. I want to restore old cars and sell them. But that is another story.

We must live like no one else so we can live like no one else. We must give like no one else so we can give like no one else.

If God would have us keep the Tahoe we will, but if he wants us to sell it then we shall and I pray he would let someone buy it NOW.

God is far greater and more powerful than the box I tend to put him in.

Wisdom is the prayer request.

I need to do this more.

I really need to keep up with this more often, more for my own sake than anything. We are going to get paid next week and that is when we go through all the woes of our lifestyle. Single income, filling envelopes, tithe, homeschool, and yes the truck payment and our other loan.

Sitting in church this morning was interesting. I can tell Laurie was thinking we are being disobedient again. I can read here like a book. She really wants to be out of debt. I understand but we are where we are... She also wants to contribute to buying down the debt. It is really hard for her to know we could do more if she had a job, but yet she cannot have one right now.

Amber and Brandon are a full time job, especially since we have chosen to teach them at home. Pouring bucket of character them as she stated in her blog a couple days ago. This is worth far more than any other thing we could do. We will beat this debt, we will be debt free, and we will make that call to Dave Ramsey and scream into the phone I am debt FREE. Unfortunately it will be a little longer than we would like. Unless God has other plans.

Again I ask for wisdom. It is so important to know how to handle these things. I spent my whole life messing stuff up. I want wisdom to help me know how to rely on God to use me as his instrument to do his will.

In pursuit of Wisdom

Above all else get wisdom.

I pray that God gives me the wisdom to lead my family. I don't know that I have alot to say about debt and all that right now, but I do want wisdom. I seek it. I pray for it. I ask that you pray for it for me. God says in James, that he gives to all generously and and without reproach...I am asking for that today.

Forget Counting the Days, let's just learn some lessons!

So after much prayer and supplication we have decided that we will fight this thing out. We have made several choices in our lives over the last few years that have brought us to where we are at right now. Last evening as I walked through the door I smiled thinking about all the blessings I have in my life. I am blessed to have a wonderful, beautiful wife. I am blessed to have two great children. I am blessed to have an awesome Pastor, great church friends, and a church home. I am blessed to have the ability to work for a living too.

As I began to count my blessings I have come to a few conclusions. First, never think you will never do that again...believe me, you will do that again. Another was that for the first time in my life my choices that I make that put me in the financial situation that I am in are almost no longer burdensome because of debt, but rather a conscious choice to spend my money a certain way. Now, I still have debt. I am working on that. But the other outgoing money is a matter of choice.

I will explain...We homeschool, chosen expense...We tithe, necessary expense...We choose to live off one income instead of two, chosen expense...We try to fill envelopes for necessities for daily living, chosen expense...We eat three meals a day, plus all snacks, fruit, and everything else at home, chosen expense...We give to charitable organizations, chosen expense...and the list goes on.

Please understand, I do not say this to receive my reward in recognition of man, but rather to keep myself accountable to God, and possibly encourage any reader who might need it.

I am so thankful to store up treasure in heaven, that is where my real retirement will be anyway.

And that is the way I feel about it today. Please pray that God will allow us Wisdom. We desire to know Him more and we seek wisdom.

Day Thirteen

I am getting ready to leave for work. Real quick post. We pulled the Tahoe off the market last night. Trying to sell it was making me sick. Not sure why though. I will be asking God what next? We did manage to get rid of some extra stuff around the house. We made about $1000.00 doing that.

I am trusting God, even though I don't understand...But that is faith Right?

Day Nine

Today we re-posted the Tahoe up for Sale and listed another dozen or more things around the house to help get rid of debt. The issue is everything we have is paid for, so selling stuff to eliminate debt is hard because we would just have to re-buy all our stuff once we get out of debt. So the answer to that is to sell stuff we don't use that could generate a little bit of money. So my tool set, golf clubs, and some of my older stuff that will sell, I just wont use it.

It is going to be a hard week.

Day Seven...Now what?

It is the seventh day of this new feeling. When we started Financial Peace University we knew it would be about 5 years before we completely dumped all our debt. Inflation has been murderous. The price of gasoline, groceries, and taxes...mixed with medicare, and social security (two things I pay a tenth of my income to that I will most likely never get that money back) have completely put the brakes on aggressive debt buy down. Why is it that the last little bit seems so much bigger than the initial larger amount. INFLATION has swallowed all my raises.

So I ask God for wisdom. What do I do now? It hurts, but I want God to prune anything from my life that does not bear fruit. Help me to love like Christ and only see the world as a child of God.