Red Light

Our first meeting with the Moneywise mentor, Dwayne, was canceled at the last minute. New date TBD.

I had read the first 3 chapters of The Total Money Makeover, by Dave Ramsey, in preparation for this first meeting. I was looking forward to asking Dwayne this one burning question:

How on earth do we apply these principles to our freelance, creative lives, when all Ramsey's success stories involve people with jobs that deposit money in their checking accounts every 2 weeks?

I can't really say I have any arguments with a word of those first 3 chapters, but there is this one constant in reaching financial freedom--steady income earning.

Are we a hopeless case then? 

I'll have to wait for the answer, and I will be sure to let you know what it is.

Unless Dave Ramsey would like to speak to me himself. That would be lovely.

On the expense paring, I have cut another $136 from our monthly expenses. No more hormone replacement therapy. Did you know that Novartis's Vivelle Dot patches are $100 for a box of 8 (one month's worth)? The compounding pharmacy supplied progesterone capsules; one month's worth for $36. Since this is not a life-saving necessity, it wasn't hard to cut the expense.

I may wake up in the middle of the night sort of warm (please don't miss the sarcasm here), or have a bout of insomnia, but hey, I don't have a job and I can take a nap. That's worth an extra $136 a month.

Dave, call me.

Breaking Silence

I will say, right up front--this is hard. Pride makes being transparent hard.

I have thought carefully about whether to continue blogging, in light of the unhappy turn my and my husband's lives have taken, but my conclusion is, this is my canvas on which to paint. I wouldn't be the first to paint something that was scorned by some, but critics have never stopped me before. Why start now?

If you don't like harsh reality then navigate away right now; however, in my heart I hope you follow me on the path we are walking.

Neither one of us is dying. We enjoy reasonably good health, but the financial disaster that we have here feels like death--death of dreams, death of progress, death of any hope of a future. After all, the rest of our lives doesn't look very long at our ages. We need a resolution ASAP.
 
FYI, we haven't come to this by charging furniture, vacations, home remodeling (although that one was tempting), or other such keeping-up-with-the-Atlantans kinds of things, on our credit cards. No, we suffered the same losses as many others in the recession--upside down on the mortgage, loss of business (Leland is a freelance pro photographer), savings wiped out to survive, no luck in my job search--and when there's no cash, there's credit for survival. Emergencies happen. Medical and dental issues come up. All you can think is, just fix it and I'll gladly charge it to feel better.

You get the picture.

If you care to follow us on our journey, we have taken our first steps:

• We have a Moneywise mentor through our church, North Point Community Church (http://www.northpoint.org/moneywise), who we will meet this week. Part of that program is reading Dave Ramsey's The Total Money Makeover.
• We are in counseling at The Summit (http://summitcounseling.org), to keep our marriage healthy as we go through what is the demise of many relationships.
• We have spiritual support, and more, from our small group.
• In the last few weeks we have pared over $700 from our monthly budget by selling my car (also ending the need for insurance), canceling U-Verse cable TV, and dropping our health insurance for membership in Christian Healthcare Ministries.

What is the point of our suffering and obstacles in life, if we don't share them? What if no one ever heard of how God guided us through this?

I want to shout the events of the journey to financial freedom from the rooftop.

That way, God's got an audience.