Babies, Brownies and Blessings

God has taken us on a pretty amazing financial journey in the last 5 years. From debt reduction to saving for an emergency to building a house...we have learned much and are grateful God wouldn't let us be lazy in that area. I touched on budgeting and frugality in my previous post  but what I didn't mention is what God has put on our hearts in a big way this year: giving. Does that make you cringe? Lots of thoughts go through our minds when "giving" is on the table: I barely have enough as it is, everybody else has more than me and could give more, certainly others have enough, the church shouldn't need my money, I want to buy that cute purse instead, the last time I gave the person didn't use the money the way they should have, etc. Over the past many months we have read or heard more and more about giving and it's stuck in my man's and my craw. It just keeps coming up! It's like God is telling us "I have something bigger for you t...

The dawning of a new year always brings financial change to the front of my mind. There's not better to start something new than at the beginning of something: new week, month, year. It's like hitting the restart button and the past truly feels like the past! Several years ago we went through Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover program and paid off all our debt in less than two years. We weren't "overspenders" necessarily, but we spent everything we made and somehow over the years had added a camper payment, car payment, continued student loan payments...you get the picture. The plan has you spending CASH, paying down your debts, smallest to largest, getting an emergency fund set in place and most importantly, BUDGETING! Fast forward and our spending has morphed into a modified version of the Ramsey plan. Still not adding debt (unless you count our new house, yikes!), still budgeting but somehow our cash use has dwindled. And I got a Target cred...