Lately, I have been feeling so sick of thinking about money. It takes so much time to make all these changes in our life. Some days, I feel like it’s all I have been thinking about “ how can we do this or that cheaper”," “ How are we going to pay for that”, and “ We just can’t afford that” seem to be taking up a lot of my mental space.
I know that since we are just starting this journey, this is a time where there is a lot to do. Calling the credit card companies was a smart thing to do, but it used up my time. Making different appointments, searching for cheaper deals and re-planning some things are necessary,
I enjoy making the things we’ve been giving as gifts, and the use of my time is definitely a benefit to my family. Again, more time thinking about how to make or do something inexpensively.
A lot of these things, once done, won’t need my focus again for a long time. However, I think that my time will still be in demand. Shopping around for deals on things we need will be a focus for a long time yet.
While we are making steady progress in this journey, it has been slow. As I said to my husband, I wonder when we will get to a point that it is not such a constant focus. Daily, it feels, there is some financial pressure, plan or thing we need to discuss.
I don’t want to get bogged down, or discouraged, though. While I would love for changes to happen quickly, I knew that wasn’t realistic. It took us many years to get here, so it will probably take us a few to get out of it too. It was encouraging to me to read about others who decided to stop being in debt and live without credit. I love the TLC show 19 Kids and Counting. I was reading the other day about the Duggar’s financial journey, and how, once they decided to get out of debt, it took them seven years. I’ve only been doing this for 7 months! I’m going to pray about my discouragement, and focus on the progress that we have made, and choose thankfulness instead. I know that thinking about our finances differently than we did in the past will be a life long change that is worth making. I will teach my children, and they too will reap benefits many times over.
I think, we are about to reach a plateau, where a lot of the big changes are made, and then it will be a time of simply continuing to do the right things. I am looking forward to focusing more on simply enjoying my kids, playing with them without my mind wandering to my financial to-do list. I want to apply my brain to other family and faith matters.
When I started blogging, I wanted it to be about Faith, Family and Finances, not just finances. As our frantic pace stage evolves into more of a steady payments stage, I hope to have more blogs on the Faith and Family aspects too! If you’ve been on this road too, I’d love to hear your story!
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