The Budget

Ok since you asked here is the low down--lol!!! The budget we worked out during our financial class was a VERY GOOD SOLID WORKING BUDGET!! That is as long as we can pay ourselves, and since we are self employed that sometimes doesn't happen. In fact we only got to work with our budget for about three weeks and were seeing how EASY things were becoming when it felt like the bottom fell out of our work load and we had NO MONEY TO PAY OUR SELF for the next 3.5 weeks. By law as employers we must pay the employees which is what happened so they never felt the crunch like we the boss did. We had a few customers we did work on houses for that didn't pay at the time the work was completed--in fact one we hadn't been able to reach for almost a full 4 weeks on and were starting to think we might have to file a lien on the house to insure that payment got made. Thankfully she was only out of town and did pay us this weekend so we have MONEY!!

Living without a paycheck for 3.5 weeks was a hardship but God in His mercy was always there. we had both Easter and Bradens birthday during this time of NO INCOME plus we needed to fill Annies meds and it was for the big ones that cost $365. We did NOT DIP INTO THE $1,000 "emergency fund" during this time as John was not sure when the cash flow would be coming back in and he wanted that money for the rent if needed. What we did have to tap into was some of the money for the credit card we were planning on paying off--but we didn't use up all the money. We just took out the barest of minimum needed to get what we had to have at that exact moment and let all the bills go. Unfortunately when we went to get Annies medicine the cost JUMPED from $365 to over $400--and that is OUR PART TO PAY!! Wal-Mart told us they raised the cost of that med and in turn was PASSING THAT ALONG TO US--there is a part of me thinking they raised it because we were coming in there every month to buy it from them and figured we would keep coming back but I'm currently shopping around to find the cheapest place to pay for it at. We have contacted the maker of the medicine to see if they have a program to make this more affordable and we make about $4,000 TO MUCH TO QUALIFY FOR HELP---UGH!!!!

But there was some good news during all of this and lessons learned to take with us as we journey down that road to the land of MORE THAN ENOUGH!! So here is what I took from the past month of money famine.......

It isn't what you spend on something that makes it special...
This was our "first Easter with the grand babies" and I wanted to do Easter baskets for them with all kinds of baby gifts they could use or need as they start crawling and teething and I didn't have the money to get them A SINGLE THING, I had wanted to make a HUGE basket for both Colton and Braden and actually only spent about $5 total on each of their baskets and that included the $1.50 for the cost of the new basket since their fell apart last year, they got NO NEW CLOTHES but they looked just as sharp as the other kids that came to church in new clothes and no one even noticed it was the same ole things they have wore before. We cooked for the entire "clan" which was our 6 kids, their spouses and babies, John-Johns mother and father in law, and Ashtons grandmother in law--so that was 14 people eating and I only spent less than $20 for the entire dinner!!!
IT TURNED OUT TO BE ONE OF THE BEST EASTER DINNERS I HAVE EVER MADE and WE HAD A GREAT TIME!!!!

Since there was NO money for Bradens birthday I was sad for all about 3 days--it seemed to me that Braden has gotten the short end of the stick since coming home and I wanted to do something extra special for him.I was hoping for this huge party and a fantastic present at a "playhouse type setting" but instead did a camp out party at the house which turned out to be the greatest birthday any of my kids have every had. Most of what I did for the party cost ZERO dollars as I decorated the upstairs with greenery from the girls wedding that I had saved to make it look like woods, I made a sign that read "Welcome to camp Wala Wala Braden" as you entered the upstairs and a very dear friend brought an outdoor "screen room type tent" that we set up in the playroom for the kids to play in and I found rocking cute gifts for the guest at the DOLLAR store of all places that went with the theme so every kid that came got---a working kids lantern, a straw cup "canteen" that has a place on the bottom for snacks, a tiny toy fishing pole and three fishes to catch, and a plastic melamine bear shaped plate that we ate off of. I made a campfire log cake out of swiss rolls and fruit roll ups for the flames and the kids LOVED IT, We roasted hot dogs on the grill for food and had smores from the microwave, and instead of one giant present I got Braden a small set of Lincoln logs which he plays with for hours. On top of that one present he received was for $25 so a few days later we went and got sand for the sand box with that money and I have to pry Braden and Colton out of it every day to eat and go to bed!!Best $25 present EVER--lol!!!

It really is the fellowship and time you give to each other that you remember and not the money spent.

We are over budget in some categories!

the most notable area is the ELECTRIC BILL. We had budgeted for $180 to make sure we covered the most expensive time of the year but the last two months have only been $89!!!!! I'm so excited because this is a full two story house with two air conditioners and so many lights you can't imagine,but since we replaced almost 90% of the lights with CF bulbs our electric is LESS than any amount we had while living in Wagoner in a single story. We don't have screen on the windows here so we have to run the air conditioner on days that I would only have opened the windows. I"m really excited as even if the bill doubles during the summer months we will still be right on budget for the amount we allowed.

Also not having the money to go do full weeks worth of grocery shopping showed us just how little we can live on in that department. If you remember John thought living on only $100 a week for groceries would be to tough so we upped it to $120 per week ---well with no money we ate on about $75 or less most weeks--on one I only spent about $50 and that was because we ran out of laundry soap--we could have even spent less if we just ate out of the pantry but I needed fresh milk and eggs and didn't have a stockpile of toilet paper so that takes a huge chunk of money on those items.

I haven't spent the $50 allowed for recreation not just because we didn't have the money but because some of the items I was going to use them on aren't available--the family swim pass for one! --bummer-- I will have to buy individual passes that add up to $125 and go MORE than 8 times for that to be a savings. I'm evaluating if that is what I still want to do. Mostly because we have a sprinkler system in the back yard and the boys LOVED LOVED LOVED running through that the other day so I'm thinking we can just play in the sprinkler everyday and water the yard at the same time( the sprinkler has zones so we can just water one zone a day for 20 minutes instead of watering the whole lawn all night long every 4 days and spend the same amount for water) If I buy the pass I know I will go more than eight times but if we just go once a week for the month of June and July that will only equal the cost of the pass--we could then use our sprinklers in the yard plus we do have a zoo pass so we can go there for fun, and the sand box that is keeping them busy so far. we still plan on putting the $50 in the budget so we can have a build up of money for next year if the boys want to play t-ball again or soccer.

WHAT WE ARE STILL WORKING ON
We are still thinking about refinancing the Wagoner house to put the first and second mortgage under one mortgage--this should free up $400 in the rent money we can pocket and use towards the credit debt. We are just hanging out to see what the government is doing about the mortgages as I just heard today they were going to do something for those with second mortgages on their homes.

Still haven't written the credit reporting agencies to have our sons information removed from our credit report(He has the same name as his dad and although he has excellent credit all his debts are showing up on our report which makes us look like we are in over our heads) Doing that should improve our credit score which took a hit when some of the credit card payment came in more than 30 days late( it really sucks because we DID PAY THEM just not at the time they were due as we had NO CASH FLOW those months!)

While we would LOVE to have all the cash to just go and do all the things we want to do when we want to do them we are having a good time living without and most of all are not feeling sorry for ourselves about the whole money issues. God is our provider and the confidence in knowing HE IS ON OUR SIDE gives us the peace we need to get through this rough patch.