In our Debt Free Update for July post we discussed about how we had started focusing on How to Become a Minimalist. While we have had a few setbacks in the last months with bills coming in more than we expected, we decided to keep a positive debt free attitude and really focused on grit this month. Several times this month I’ve had to choose to have a good attitude about being debt free. Also, make sure to join our 31-Day Spending Freeze! (See all of our Debt Free Journey posts here).
When we were in the thick of trying to reach our debt free goal (We are currently debt free other than our mortgage), it was a great motivator to see the numbers going down so fast. It was actually pretty easy because we were paying off all these little bills left and right and gaining serious momentum. However, now that we have our mortgage to pay down, it’s been tough knowing that while we will see the number going down each month, it will take much longer to pay off that large amount of a debt compared to some of these other expenses.
I’ve also realized that now we really need to start saving for newer vehicles in the future in addition to paying down our debt. However, please know that I will not quit, give up, or back down. We are pressing forward, and as I mentioned before, we are using our grit to push through these feelings and continue to pay down our debt. I always go back to the “Rocky” movies, and I think about how much he had to push through pain, exhaustion, and many other feelings, and I’m not going to quit either.
Even though this sounds tough I want to encourage others with the fact that while moving towards a debt free lifestyle isn’t easy, it is so worth it, and I would never want to quit. Also, I can’t tell you how much less I love my material possessions. I’ve had a drastic change in my feelings about my material possessions. They will wither, get old, break, crack, and I can not take them with me when I die.
Each day I live needs to be about loving my spouse, children, family, and friends. My relationships don’t focus around my material items anymore, and I don’t worship my stuff anymore as I did before in my heart. Please don’t misunderstand, I never “worshipped” items, but I did make them pretty important and now they have lost their place of value. I’ve also had to examine my own motives and desires, and I realize now that I really was very insecure from growing up with a single mom who didn’t have a lot of money. We weren’t poor, and my mom even owned her own house, but I really had to watch her struggle, and I never realized until this journey how much that impacted my attitude towards money and material things.
My material possessions were a cushion of comfort between myself and the lifestyle of lack I lived as a child. I remember hearing many, many times, “We can’t afford that.” It is very difficult to hear that over and over again and not decide that you will never go through that again, and that you will always have enough money. However, what I’ve come to realize is that while I didn’t have much growing up, I had so much love…. and that’s most important.
How we made changes this month to save and earn extra income while we are spending as little as possible:
- This past month financially was tough, but we were able to complete our own spending freeze and establish a budget for an upcoming large purchases we will have to make. While we have a plan for that we know that we won’t be able to save as much, which is tough, but necessary. The spending freeze totally got us through August and I’m so thankful we did it, because even though we weren’t able to save much, we didn’t go into any more debt, even with a few unexpected expenses.
- We packed every single meal everywhere we meant. This means we did not eat out at all this past month, which is amazing, since that is our weak point.
- We had two photo shoots this month which produced $100 in extra income.
- We completed several blog posts that were compensated which helped bring in extra income as well. However, we are trying to position our blog to grow, so we had to reinvest pretty much all of that extra income. It will be worth the growth!
- Hubby started driving his Yugo again to and from work, so that saves a tremendous amount of gas money. I think we will actually write a blog post all about the Yugo since we have several young readers who have never seen one! Let’s just say that he gets the gas mileage of a smart car in this vehicle.
- All of the cleaners in our home have now been replaced with our Young Living products. They announced in July that they would be selling dish soap, laundry detergent, etc. So, we no longer have those expenses in our grocery bill each month as they are part of our Essential Rewards order which we can write off as a business expense.
- We continue to work on building our Young Living essential oils team to create extra income for our family. This past month our check was over $400. We have been using these oils since last year, and they have made such a difference in our lives! We are now making a monthly residual income from this business, and we have replaced so many items in our home with non-toxic items!
- Please note that we have started a YouTube series on our YouTube channel titled “Daily Dime.” Make sure to subscribe to our channel and check by daily for ways you can save money every day. We are also on Periscope (search for DebtFreeSpending.com) and also have our Daily Dime show listed on there as well!
- Hubby and I shared the last few months that we started a local photography business. You can check out our Brandt Family Media website and our Brandt Family Media Facebook page. While we did use some savings to purchase supplies for this business, we were able to take over 20 photo shoots to build our portfolio. This was a huge praise and we were so grateful to the families who allowed us to capture their lives! The idea for this business is for hubby to earn extra income at times when he is not working with his client. He works for an nursing agency that deals with sick children. Sometimes his clients do not need his services, so he doesn’t work. However, it’s a huge blessing to our family to have him off at times, so we don’t mind that he doesn’t work every day. The majority of money we would have saved this month went towards building this business. While it was a sacrifice, we feel it will be worth it in the long run.
Prayer Requests:
- Please continue to pray that we will be able to start saving again this fall. Hubby just started back to work, so we’re trying to adjust the finances around having income coming in again. As I said last month, it is really important that we continue to build our savings back up. We have spent a major amount of money on health related items this year way beyond our FSA (that was tapped out by February!).
- I have finally finished all four iron infusions (Praise the Lord!). While I had several side effects, I pushed through them and I’m praying that my blood test this month shows my numbers all going up.
- Please pray for this upcoming year as we have to make some final decisions about any more children, adoption, etc.
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