Step 1: Saving for your emergency fund:
This first step of the emergency fund is sticking back $1000 as fast as you can. There are several places to look for “extra” money to save. The Following is a list of practical ideas we implemented in our financial journey:
Think of it like an “emergency mission”. Make it top priority. If you knew you were about to die and the only lifesaving medicine available cost $1000, how fast could you save it? You’d be pretty serious, I suppose.Get serious.
They are the highest depreciating item. Can you sell your car and purchase a cheaper one with the cash?
What if that’s not enough? Sometimes a couple may truly have cut back every variable expense they can and still come up short. Being financially free often requires doing HARD things…
Mike and Debbie were one of those couples who had made some bad financial decisions early in their marriage, later realizing the bondage they were in. Since they had two small children and were resolved that Debbie didn’t need to leave them to enter the work force, they sought some Christian, financial counseling. After examining their income and expenses, the counselor recommended something hard for them to swallow.
The turning point in our despairing situation was when my husband decided to take a part-time job in addition to his regular job in retail. As I mentioned in the beginning, he had previously run a landscaping business, doing well in the summer, but poorly in the winter. He still had a commercial mower we were paying for, so he continued to do lawn service as it became available. In addition to that, he got a job at night delivering pizza. It saved us. I am still in awe of his determination and stamina. He worked 3 to 4 nights a week, averaging around $50 a night. Little by little, we could feel the desperation vanish. And while it was a difficult season to be apart so much, the release of tension made up for the loss of time together. The sheer joy of knowing we would be able to pay all our bills for the month sustained us through the long working hours.
12 comments
I didn’t see any rules about not posting twice. ;o)
Kelly,my husband is a crew leader at a factory and like your husband spent a couple nights working for some friends of ours at thier pizza place.$50.00 a night free food and drinks for are family of 7 may not sound like much to some but it made a huge diffrence in our monthly savings and kept me home.I tried babysitting and cleaning houses my children and husband hated my time being spent away from them.I also had a really hard time keeping up with the kids school work when I cleaned.But the funny thing is even though I made the same or a little more than my husbands pizza job we never seemed to be getting ahead that way.We believe we where working out of Gods will for our lives as soon as we switched things around our home life became more scheduled again and blessings begain to pour in.Gifts we never expected,money from security deposits on places we hadn’t lived in 5 years,good deals on thing we needed,and God really started blessing our thought life as well.Suddently ideas would come to us that had never accured to us before.Basically I am saying if your struggling financialy you may want to consider if you are living in Gods will or not.I am not saying that we will not have hardships either way but being inline with Gods plan for family blessed us greatly.
Lucy T.,
I think that is a very good point; often when we’re doing what we think “makes sense”, we don’t get the same reward if that wisdom is contrary to God’s. I’ve heard the same said of tithing…
I’m going to finally get your e-book! FYI- when I click to add it to my cart it adds the homeschool book instead…so I clicked on that link and it added the financial freedom book…
We use a calling card that we got at Sam’s almost seven years ago. We recharge it online and pay just over $.03/minute. We have the number memorized so we don’t even have to have the card to make a long distance call. It’s great to not have a shockingly high phone bill because of long distance charges. It’s saved us a TON of money over the years!
Stephanie…
Oh dear! Guess I need to fix that…I’m still trying to work through these WordPress kinks 😉
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