It is easy to get caught up in things that don't matter. I guess we really need to ask ourselves what does matter.

I hope Judy doesn't mind, I found her message on a post I was reading about a 31 day challenge on living on Zero which was actually just paying the basic necessities and for nothing else. My heart was touched as I read what she wrote:

Try doing that because you have no other choice. I lost my job and am only wage earner. Mississippi only get up to 211 a week to cover expenses. Have no phone at all about to loose my car food is down to nothing rent is month behind. About to be 2 mos. the up side I start my new job tomorrow an hour and a half away. I’m happy you did this. I thing everyone should for a month or two. You will really understand what others go threw these days. Honestly didn’t think I would find a job I’m 55 it’s not easy. I only hope I can get bills all caught up and this has taught me to not be so frivolous. I gave my children everything and anything paid for cell phones bought cars. Out of all that. When I needed the help only one of them did what they could to help me. I think we all need to be more realistic and allow our children to make their own mistakes. It’s the only way they grow up.

After reading her message I decided that I was going to write more about my personal journey to get out of debt and to stay out of debt. 

My husband and I have taken an extremely drastic approach (as some of my other posts show) to get out of debt and to own our home and live as self-reliant as possible. One day my mother asked what our driving force was and I had to do a little self-examination to figure that out. I realized that for me the driving force was my husband losing his job over and over. The first time he lost his job it was because the company he worked for went out of business. It was actually becoming common at the time. Several stores were either closing or reorganizing in an attempt to stay open.  The second time he lost his job his department was eliminated after a merger with another company. The third time he lost his job it was also from the company downsizing with the economy struggling, and since he was new to the company he was one of the first to go. He got another job after that, but he knew immediately with their financial practices that his job was only temporary.  Later he managed to get a good job that lasted 9 years, but during the last year that is when we made our move. We bought our homestead and started working really hard towards our goal of self-reliance. 

We had already ended our credit card use a couple of years before. We decided that spending money we hadn't earned yet left a bad taste in our mouths when we spent months paying for purchases that were ofter short lived. We also learned that there was always another way besides credit cards to take care of emergencies and our number one go to became prayer and our second go to was patience. If we couldn't get something we needed then we had to pray for help and be patient until a solution presented itself. 

However above all else we had to sacrifice. If we can't afford something we go without. Additionally we live in our tiny house that we have been building over the past two years. Sometimes our house feels really small, but most of the time it is big enough for all our needs. We have more than just our tiny house, we have 36 acres that we will eventually have fenced in and use for multiple uses when it comes to growing food and raising animals but right now we just have a few of those acres fenced in and that is enough for us to get started. In addition to our tiny house we also have two more sheds that we use. One has been converted into additional storage and living space and the other is additional storage. 

After my husband and I purchased our property and started our homestead a series of events led to a search again for a new job. This search lasted 8 months. We were able to use our tax return, a part-time summer job, and unemployment to get buy during those 8 months and finally he got a new job and we got a stronger than ever determination to get out of debt as quickly as possible. When we bought our property we purchased a shed for the outside of our tiny house, and that was our first goal (pay off the tiny house). Although we had cash flowed the building of everything inside we didn't have time before our first winter would hit to cash flow the outside. If we wanted to have it ready before the first winter hit we needed a jump start and would have to add two debts. The first was the shed that would become our tiny house and the second was our property.

I also want to mention that our surviving for 8 months was possible because we had already eliminated car payments and credit cards.

That first summer I woke up with the sun and worked until after the sun went down and collapsed in bed exhausted. My kids learned to work alongside me and together we got the house ready for winter. The second year we moved fences most of the year. We were able to do come work on the house but since my husband didn't have a full-time job we couldn't spend money on the house, but there was plenty of work still to be done. 

After my husband got a job in the fall and we recovered financially we started working on the house again. This time my teenage son became my right hand helper. It was so good to work with him and he began to grow emotionally as he helped more. Having my children work along side me during this process has given them learning and growth opportunities that I wasn't able to give them before. 

We still have a long ways to go and our goals is to pay for our property in the next few years and then to begin getting rid of our last debt (our student loans). We also want to add on to our home or build a new home that is a lot bigger but we want to cash flow all of that project and getting out of debt so that we can free up all of our income is a big part of being able to cash flow a big building project. In the meantime we have lost of work to continue to do on our homestead including a green house and summer gardens. We have animals we are raising and we have our property to tame. But most importantly we have a beautiful family to raise and I am so grateful for my children and this experience we share together.

I feel extremely grateful despite all our trials we have been extremely blessed. We have a daughter serving a mission and a new baby girl and we have our home paid for. We are only left with two large debts. One is our property and the second is those terrible student loans that we only have ourselves to blame for taking them out. However we continue to press forward and make progress even if it is slower than we would like.

It amazes me how I can have a wonderful productive day that is also a stressful day. I am so grateful for my home and our homestead, but how is it that I can look around and see all we have and all that is left to finish at the same time. Why can't we just enjoy the moment a little more often. Perhaps that is a gift and for those that don't have that gift, perhaps it is a learned talent.
I also think that Gratitude (like our testimonies) is something that needs constant nourishment.
I am grateful for so very much.

The cost of raising a child

According to the Washington Associated Press: 

A child born in 2013 will cost a middle-income American family an average of $245,340 until he or she reaches the age of 18, with families living in the Northeast taking on a greater burden, according to a report out Monday. And that doesn't include college — or expenses if a child lives at home after age 17.

Those costs that are included — food, housing, childcare and education — rose 1.8 percent over the previous year, the Agriculture Department's new "Expenditures on Children and Families" report said. As in the past, families in the urban Northeast will spend more than families in the urban South and rural parts of the U.S., or roughly $282,480.

I find this report completely ridiculous. First off these numbers include housing and I can tell you right now that a lot of people who don't even have children have homes and most of those homes have more than one bedroom in them. To be fair I think that housing should not be included in these figures because families with and without children all have to have homes and the size of the homes seems consistent with peoples personalities and not the size of their family. 

Second, more and more families are becoming extremely frugal. This means that clothing can cost a lot but there have never been more thrift stores available than there are today and most children aren't made fun of for wearing thrift store purchase instead savvy mom are creating children who are excited to show their awesome thrift store finds to their friends. 

Third, childcare is an expense that a lot of families bear, but a lot of families don't pay for child care. Having children might mean child care expenses, but that is usually a personal decision. I think that these expenses shouldn't automatically be included in the cost of raising a child because a family can choose not to pay for childcare expenses. I think the numbers that should be included are those that are essential costs and not optional for most families.

Fourth, education does cost (sometimes a lot) but the variation in costs here would make it very difficult to tabulate.

Fifth, food is a cost but adding an additional meal to a menu of homemade food is a very small cost. Yes a person could spend a lot of money raising a child, and I know people who do, but it doesn't have to cost a lot. 

It has been my experience that the majority of costs are transportation (vehicles and gasoline) and insurance. With increasing government laws more children means larger cars and additional insurance. 

Before we get too set on the numbers provided by the Associated Press I think we need to look at our own personal preferences and decide what having a child will cost to us based on our personalities and personal choices. 

Progress

As we walked along our dirt courtyard my husband responded, it just seems like we are back where we started last year. I wondered what made him feel that way, and yet I knew. Progress is such a powerful emotion. It is so powerful that we have an emotional response both when we make progress and when we don't make progress. We have come a very long way since we started our homestead a little over a year ago, but not being able to make progress on it at this time is emotional. I had this same discussion with my friend who I love and respect very much. We talked about how emotionally difficult it was to feel success with your finances if you are just living paycheck to paycheck even if you are in a better situation than you have been. She had managed to eliminate their credit card debt but was still living paycheck to paycheck, so it didn't feel different even though it was different.

So how do we fight this? How do we feel progress so we can feel the success that comes with progress and the joy that comes with it? I have two ideas. First, we must have gratitude and often. We need to search often for those things that we are grateful and we must than our Father in Heaven for them often.
Second we need to have areas in our lives that we do see progress. Part of the difficulty comes from tasks that we do where progress isn't possible. For example a sink full of dirty dishes comes and goes daily. A pile of laundry might disappear only to reappear in an hours time. For this reason goal setting is not only smart but it is essential to our happiness. We need to set goals for ourselves and work on them. Another dear friend recently announces that she was going back to school. She wasn't sure that it would change very much in her life but she was taking the step nonetheless. However, that is a step towards accomplishment and progress. That step is vitally important to her sense of progress that produces such powerful emotions.  Our goals however don't need to be big (although big is good) small goals can help us feel the same sense of power if we set and accomplish goals. Even though my friend who had paid off her credit cards was struggling there was a sense of progress she was able to feel when they were paid off. Its just hat we have to keep having moments when we win. We need to be always working forward. That is what our Father in Heaven wants. He doesn't want us to stay where we are, he wants us to be moving forward. It is important that in prayer we counsel with our Heavenly Father and ask how we can move forward. Ask for his help in setting our goals. I say this because it is also dangerous ( and way to easy) to do a lot of things that are not important and of little worth, so as we work toward that sense of accomplishment that is so powerful we must also do so carefully. We don't want to get the bigger home if it means in the process we picked up an extra job and now have to miss going to church to pay for it. We need to stretch ourselves and move forward, but we also need to make sure that we do so with wisdom and prudence.

Stepping Stones

Sometimes we get stepping stones that help us to cross a steam that blocks our path. I don't exactly know how we are going to survive financially over the next few years. My husband has not been able to find a job here yet, but we have had some stepping stones that have helped us at this time while we are working to get through this current obstacle and I am so very grateful for all the stones that have appeared before us to help us cross this stream.

Storms

I have almost always looked at trials as blessings and opportunities for growth and learning, but recently I have realized how very much I love some trials. Oh they can be so difficult, but that is where I find my strength and my weaknesses. I don't want more trials right now, but I appreciate how much I learn from them. In fact, if I was asked to go into a store and shop for my trials I would probably pick the easiest trials they had and the fewest I could get away with. I guess it is good that I am not in control because the amount of growth I would have would also be small and not very much. I am grateful I don't get to pick my trials, but I am more grateful that I have the Atonement, the Holy Ghost, and the knowledge of the gospel to help get me through our trials.

Faith

Yesterday our property was flooded something terrible and today we had to leave for the day. Both days we had to milk our goats outside since our milk stand isn't built in our tiny shed yet. Honestly I don't know when it will be built. However yesterday, today and many other days over the past 3 weeks I have prayed that we would have decent enough weather in the evening when it was time to milk the goats. Every day we have been blessed to have decent enough weather at milking time, and I am so very grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who has blessed us with a break in the storm clouds when we needed it.