Random $ Thoughts

An acquaintance of mine posted a link to an article on Facebook, and I'm not sure if the idea behind this is brilliant or stupid.

Here, I'll let you read it yourself.  I'll wait.

::gets up and brushes her teeth::

::feeds the cat so he won't keep sitting on her every time she sits down::

Okay. I'm conflicted.  The concept behind this--the arbitrary forgiveness of debt--is fascinating.  That other people would willingly buy random debt for pennies, and then just forgive it seems like a Christ-like story if ever I heard one.

But it just doesn't seem fiscally responsible, you know?   I'm just going to wager a guess that most of the people donating to this cause are members of Occupy Wall Street because, well, they are "the 99%".  From the stories I've heard and read about OWS, they seem to attract the "woe is me, I had to take out student loans, and I can't pay them back" crowd.  So, instead of paying on their own loans, they're rewarding people who defaulted on their debt--so they can rack up more?  (It's statistical.  The root of the problem is not solved, just the symptoms.)  So, instead of taking care of their own messes, they're giving their money to others, "giving a drunk a drink" if you will.  I know, I know.  This is an extreme what if scenario, but this is where my mind goes.

Perhaps my heart needs work.

We voted on some financial matters at church this month, and I abstained from voting.  My heart is hurting over this, too.  Am I faithless?  Do I believe that God can do big things?  YES, I DO!  I sat in church this morning and counted 18--EIGHTEEN!--small children on the steps for the children's sermon, knowing that when we came here, there were three or four children that would be there regularly.  God has done big things in our church and I know that he's not done yet.  So, why do I have anxiety about the money stuff?

For the same reason the OWS thing seems conflicting to me.

Because I'm selfish and depraved.  I'm a sinner.  And I have to re-remind myself about God's nature and sovereignty and BIGness, and about the gospel story--every day.

Exhaustion

Forgive me if I've pontificated on this before, but it's something that is on my mind again as I sit exhausted.

This year, the state legislature, in an effort to "help" some of the districts on the coast whose counties benefit most from the tourism industry, mandated a late start date for every district in the state.  Teachers in my district were originally supposed to report on July 30, with students returning on August 6.  Instead, students across the state had to wait two more weeks.  Great for them, right, because they got two more weeks of summer?  Teachers reported on August 13.  Great for us, because we had two more weeks of summer, too?

No.

I say it again.  NO!

This has not been a good thing.  What this did for us was to take two weeks out of our school year.  The end date is the same, so breaks were eliminated.  Practically nonexistent.

We started August 20, and then got September 3 off for Labor Day.  We have not had a break since.  That was TWO months ago.  Essentially, that's one whole grading period without a break.  We'll have Veteran's Day off, and three days at Thanksgiving, six school days at Christmas, one workday before kids return after the holidays, MLK day immediately after that, Spring Break at the end of March (but not if we have bad weather days--then they'll take days away from Spring Break), and nothing else.

I'm exhausted.  And I'm not the only one.  Teachers at my school are taking personal and sick days (scheduling doctor's appointments during the school day) just to get a break.  I can't afford to take any sick or personal days, because I might actually have to use them if Elsie and/or Oscar get sick.  Last year, I was using them as fast as I was accumulating them (1 per month) when the kids got sick.

The trade-off for not having teacher work days or holidays built into the schedule (except for a paltry few--for which I am most thankful!) is that I'm having to use "home time" to finish school stuff, or let it go undone.  Trying to balance out my time and spend time with my family frequently means that the dishes and laundry go undone and that there is a layer of dust on stuff.  But, floors are mostly vacuumed (Roomba!) and trash goes out on Mondays, so I'm not completely crazy.

I am behind at school and I am behind at home.

I'm exhausted.  Did I say that?

I know, I know.  Wah wah wah.  You work your job without breaks here and there.  And we even get summers off, right, so what the heck am I complaining about?

I'll just say that until you (or state legistators) set foot in a classroom full time, you can never truly understand and appreciate how draining it is to interact with other people's children all day long.  And then to go home to your own children who drain the rest of your energy (I don't even know how single parents who are teachers do it).  When will you get to recharge your batteries?  Teachers need the time away from students to do this.  That's what summer is for.  That's what integrated breaks are for.

I'm exhausted.  I don't know if I'm going to make it to the three-day weekend coming up.

Prayers, please.

Cheers.

November 2012 Debt Update

Nothing much to report for October.  It was a ho-hum kind of month and we made minimum payments.

 Second 10K Chunk, started 5/1/12

 

Fundraising Thermometer

 



This next month, Eli's captain's pay should kick in and we will be throwing a chunk at the debt snowball in an effort to finish off this thermometer before the end of the year.  Wish us luck!

Cheers.

HGTV Observations

Last night I was watching television in lieu of sleeping--I just don't sleep well when Eli is out of town--and I realized I've spent most of my TV-watching time on ABC, USA, and TNT.  It's been a long time since I watched HGTV, and since I didn't want to procrastinate too long, I flipped over to it.  Its 30-minute show lineup is perfect for being productive between shows.

A new show was on, one I haven't seen: House Hunters Renovation.  The gist is that people are looking for fixer-uppers.  I wish I could tell you more, but I didn't end up watching much of it. But, I did hear something for the first time that I've never heard on these house-hunting shows.

House Hunter (paraphrase):  We got approved at [$ amount], but I'm not willing to spend more than [much lower $ amount] because we have dreams and goals and things we want to do when we retire instead of pay on a house.

Wow!  This is very much my attitude toward our little house.  It's a starter house.  We'll have it paid off before Elsie graduates high school.  We will not upgrade or move unless we have to, really.  We could spend more on a mortgage payment, but then we would be "house poor".  We have dreams for our retirement, and a large house with a large payment does not mesh with those dreams.

I see a lot of shows on HGTV where people set a budget and then end up going over.  I don't know if this guy stuck to his guns, but I hope that we can.

Cheers.

October Debt Update

Thank you, JT, for your kind words concerning our progress in our debt reduction. And then it occurred to me that it's already 2/3 of the way through the month and I haven't posted about it yet.

Well, then.  Here we go.

In September, we only paid minimums on our loans (the last of our non-mortgage debt).


 Second 10K Chunk, started 5/1/12

 

Fundraising Thermometer

 
In October 2011, I finally added up how much debt we had left since starting Dave Ramsey's Baby Steps in February of 2008.  We had reached the halfway point, but the last debts were Eli's two massive student loans that totaled more than $50,000.  It was overwhelming to look at that large number, but when someone suggested that we split it up into manageable chunks of $10,000, the debt thermometers were born.  We finished the first one in May 2012, and hope to be done with the second one by the year's end.  We can hope, right?

So, we've been working with these visuals for a year, and we've paid off $16,913.71 in this year's time.  Sometimes it's depressing to listen in on the Dave Ramsey show, and people pay off twice that in a year's time, but then I have to remember that hey, we could have been SPENDING that money and NOT getting out of debt.  Progress is progress.  We have $35,000 left to go.

To just lay it out there for anyone also in our shoes, the longer it takes us to get rid of this debt, the harder it is for me to maintain the intensity.  The upcoming increase on the focus on materialism in our culture (commercial Christmas) is not going to make things any easier for me.  It will only serve to cause me to battle my inner definitions of wants and needs.  The catalogs have already started coming in the mail...

So, if you would keep us in your prayers as we continue this journey to be good stewards of the resources provided to us by our Lord.  We want to eliminate our debt so that we can use these resources to support  missionary friends overseas and in other ways that we feel led to give.

Thanks, guys!

Cheers!