Monday, November 29, 2010

A beautiful gift

We put our house on the market in January. In March of 2006, our third child was born. A beautiful little girl. I was only able to take off of work for 6 weeks because I did not have enough vacation time to extend my maternity leave and did not have any money aside to take an unpaid extended leave. I thoroughly enjoyed the time spent at home. I had all these great plans of getting tons of stuff done while home and of course, none of that happened. It's amazing how a little baby, who sleeps and eats all day can take up SO much of your time. Regardless, it was incredible being home with the three of them.



When I went back to work, I had my heart set on continuing to nurse my daughter. I had nursed my first son for 8 months and the second for 9. I really wanted to make it a full year with her. I was religious about my pumping, making sure I had scheduled in my calendar to go every three hours.



Even with my dedication and perseverance, my milk supply started to decrease. At about four months old, I started feeding her in the evenings and she would cry because she was still hungry. I was so sad, I knew I would fall WAY short of my 1 year goal. There were evenings when I would feed her and just cry. I was devastated. She was completely weaned by 5 months old.



I knew the main reason I couldn't continue was due to the pumping at work. It just didn't have the same effect. This just fueled my desire to be home.

The First Move

As we evaluated our situation, we realized our first move was to move (pun intended!). About a year before we made this decision, we had this brilliant idea to consolidate our debt into a second mortgage. The thought was we were going to live in this house forever (well at least a long time), and the value would increase to cover the debt. Obviously, we were making regular payments as well. We were pretty sure we owed more than the house was worth.



My sister-in-law decided to become a financial advisor during all of this and asked us if she could do a financial evaluation on us. Since she was just starting, a supervisor came with her. They asked us about all of our assets and what our future goals were, etc. I told her we were thinking about selling our house and that I wanted to stay at home with our children. She took one look at our financial situation and said "you can't sell your house, it would be a short sale, and you don't have any money to bring to the table". Did she just say "you can't"??? That was an immediate challenge to my ears. I felt like if God had really called me to this, that was the only way. We were making a monthly house payment over $2000.



We figured we had better get an appraisal on the house to see if we could move forward. We prayed that if this was the Lord's will, the appraisal would come in at $275,000 which would be enough to cover what we owed and the second mortgage.



We had bought the house for $243,000 about 2 years earlier, so that much of an increase in equity was quite a stretch. This was right at the end of the housing bubble, so it wasn't impossible. The appraiser came out and voila, our first miracle. The house appraised for $278,000. We took that as a sign and put our house on the market.



We had sold our first house by owner, so we wanted to save realtor fees with this sale as well. Our house backed up to a main road, so we put a sign on that road and waited.



POP!! I swear the housing bubble had to pop right after we got our appraisal. The market started to turn. We had very few calls on the house and even less showings.



So we kept praying and waiting....

Saturday, November 27, 2010

The Pit of Debt

So it's best to start out this journey with the whole truth. It's not just that we can't support our family on one income, its that we've made really bad decisions along the way and found ourselves with a heap of debt. Although I wish the heap made you feel like you were on a mountain top with a beautiful view in your sight. But instead, we find ourselves at the bottom of a big pit. A pit in which all we can see is the pit itself. Our debt is really the number one reason why I am unable to stay home.

This area of our lives is one of those that we have come a long way in over the years. We've definitely had our stumbles too. Both my husband and I are impulse spenders. Many couples have a nice balance with one spender and one saver... yep, not us. We're learning though and learning how to balance each other out and reach for our goals.

About a year and a half ago we went through the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University. It took us about a year and 2 months to finally move to a cash budget (July 2010) and we've just recently started attacking this thing with gazelle intensity. Prior to taking that class, there were may lifestyle changes we had to make in order to even get to this point. Many of those I will cover in future posts.

Just to be clear, we're not talking like thousands of dollars of debt.... it's like tens of thousands of dollars in debt. I hope to share our victories as we chip away and make a path out of this pit.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

The Call

It was August of 2005, I was on a business trip to San Francisco. A friend had lent me the book called "Women Leaving the Workplace" by Larry Burkett.

I had thought about being a stay at home mom before, but our financial situation never allowed us to do so. I make a considerable amount more than my husband and our family could not support itself on his income alone. We were living in a house we designed and had built for us. Our life wasn't extravagant, but definitely comfortable. With three small children, we were able to eat out a few times a week and still take family vacations.

I was sitting on the plane with my boss just a few rows behind me and on the other side of the aisle none the less. He had a direct line of sight to my seat. I wanted to make sure he didn't see what book I was reading.

I started reading the book and over the next week, the Lord really placed a passion in me to be at home with my kids. I truly felt this was the call of the Lord for my life, not that I needed Larry Burkett's book to tell me that because the bible had already clearly stated it. But the Lord used that book to help me realize my role as a mother and a wife and how important it was to our family.

I talked with my husband during the week and after I got home. We agreed it was something we needed to start working towards. We had no idea where this journey would take us or what we would need to do to get there. We also had no idea how long it would take us. I made the foolish statement "It's not like this could take 10 years or anything, by then we would have missed the point". I now pray that it really doesn't take 10 years, because I surely did not expect that it would take the years that it already has.

This blog is to chronicle our journey both in the present and past events. God has worked in mighty ways to confirm our efforts and His calling for our lives.