Financial Stewardship

As I had talked about upon beginning this blog, one of the biggest things I wanted to change about myself was my financial stewardship.  Well, I'm happy to report that I just got my credit card bills for this past month, and we have spent less than we have in at least 5 years!  Not only that, but we were able to live within our means even though my husband missed a couple of days of work (unpaid) due to sickness that had recently run through our house and without the extra we would not have made it to budget (as his pay was significantly less than budgeted this month).  The Lord blessed us with some unexpected extra income (my husband does wedding videography sporadically and was able to book a job this month).  Yet another testimony of God's faithfulness!  If we are faithful - He is!  God has never failed to provide for our needs.

I remember very clearly a few months after Luke and I got married we were extremely poor and didn't know how we would make ends meet.  I worked part time for Lifetouch for $8 per hour and Luke was unemployed.  We had rent to pay and my paycheck, in its entirety was just enough to cover it.  So, we were forced to make the decision - should we pay rent, or should we tithe and trust God for the remainder?  We ended up tithing, and God came through in a very unexpected way.  We got a letter with a check a few days later from the government, saying we had made an error on our taxes and they owed us money.  That's right, the government said they owed us money!  You know it's God when that happens!  The amount they gave us was in excess of the shortfall to pay rent, so we even had enough left over for other things like food that was also needed.

One last comment is on an article I came across today: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03/24/thousands-christians-displaced-ethiopia-muslim-extremists-torch-churches-homes-2057387870/  Please pray for those who are suffering for their faith!  I can only imagine how hard it would be to lose both your house and your church while fleeing for your lives!  Pray also for the Muslim extremists who are blinded by their faith and are committing such atrocities.  If you feel lead, you can donate to: http://www.persecution.org/ethiopiacrisis/2011/03/22/one-thousand-given-food-for-a-week-so-far/ as just $5 will feed or clothe one of the displaced Christians.

The Lost Art of Sharing

Spring is finally starting to manifest itself here in the Midwest as well as the snow melts away in the 40 degree weather and rain has been coming down washing a lot of the salt off the roads.  I absolutely love spring as there is a general feeling of renewing everywhere.  One of the things I have been thinking a lot about is the lost art of sharing.  As children are growing up, we encourage them to "share their toys" as it's the nice/right thing to do.  If little Jimmy hogs a toy (even his own) when a friend wants to use it, they are discouraged from their poor behavior and often an adult will step in to facilitate the sharing.  The irony for me is that adults rarely share!  We have lost a lot due to the fact that we have become an individualistic and selfish nation.  Once upon a time, an entire community would come together to build each other up.  They would hold a "barn raising" where everyone would bring their own tools and sacrifice their own labor, often for days at a time, to help a neighbor out (building things such as barns, houses, etc).  In turn, often the favor was reciprocated.  I was primarily raised in an apartment and held this fantasy of community and sharing in house dwelling.  When we finally did buy our own house I was shocked to find that people were so cold and closed to outsiders.  I held a "housewarming" party to try and meet my neighbors, so I could be actively involved in my community and only ONE person showed up!  Now I realize there may still be communities like I referenced above, but I think they are fading fast. If your lawn mower broke down, how likely would you be to petition a neighbor to borrow theirs?  Perhaps chipping in for gas and maintenance, and possibly even taking turns doing each others lawns?  Instead, people just take a trip to Sears or other store and buy a new one.  Similarly, every winter I see those that are out breaking their backs shoveling snow by hand where there are one or two freshly snowplowed driveways only steps away.  Now it is one thing to simply talk about things such as this and a completely other thing to DO something about it.  So, I decided that I would go through things that I owned and never used (such as muffin pans, tablecloths, etc) and posted a general "free" ad on my facebook wall.  I figured not only would I be decluttering my house, but there may be friends that were in need of the very items I was seeking to dispose of.  Low and behold, ALL of the items I listed people snatched up!  The awesome part of this is that often this lends to a snowballing effect - sort of a "pay-it-forward."  When those friends go through their closets to declutter, they will possibly think of doing something similar.  Plus, when I give these items away, it forces me to get together with people I may not have seen in awhile and helps keep communication between friends open and alive.  In the same way I think we need to be more open about asking for things when needed.  Pride is often what keeps us from doing this...when it is more of a blessing to give than to receive!  Often the other person is more than happy to share what is theirs, and are unaware of your need because you don't ask.  A great case in point is that I was able to borrow an infant attachment to my double stroller from a good friend that no longer needed hers.  This was a great blessing to me, as a new one would have cost $40.  The key is that the more we share, the less we buy - which saves us money, time (you have to work to make money!), and the environment is less impacted as less products will need to be produced to fulfill the needs of the community.

Also, a quick update: We did get the slow flow shower head I had previously mentioned installed this weekend.  It was actually this model: http://www.waterpikecoflow.com/VBE-453/ it came equipped with the option for navy showers, which I was quite impressed with!  It basically had a button to push that would lower the flow to conserve water while lathering.  Although I didn't use this feature, I liked that you could hardly tell it was slower flowing than the previous model.  The only downfall is it was somewhat cheaply made and after just four showers in our household, it was already in need of re tightening as it was leaking and spraying everywhere!  I suppose if I were to buy it myself (as this was a gift) I'd definitely recommend getting a model that was better built, as you tend to get what you pay for.  =)

H20 Conservation

As my husband stated this morning, he often feels blessed to shower/bathe in water that is cleaner than most people in the world have to drink. We take the clean fresh water for granted and often times are wasteful of this precious resource. Today I was challenged to look at ways we could cut out our water consumption. The first thing I looked at was bathing.

I researched and found out some interesting facts. According to the U.S. Dept of the Interior (http://ga2.er.usgs.gov/edu/sq3action.cfm), a typical bath is 50 gallons of water, and a typical shower is 2.5 gallons per minute. If you switch to a low flow shower head a shower would consume 1.5 gallons per minute. Therefore, a bath would equal 33 minutes in the shower (20 minutes with a standard shower head). For most people, the low flow shower is a lot better. Low flow shower heads only cost around $10-15 per year, and save you an average of $50 per year (plus on a typical every-other-day 20 minute shower you would save 3,560 gallons of water!) This was quite convicting as my sister-in-law gave us a low flow shower head for Christmas and it's still sitting in the box in our closet. First on the agenda is to have my hubby install that tonight!

Secondly, have you ever heard of a Navy shower? This is the extreme in water conservation! Basically you run the water for a few seconds to get wet, shut off the water while you lather up, then turn the water back on to rinse off (typically only a few minutes). I can't even begin to think of the calculations on savings for that sort of shower, but it would be immense! The only practical way I think you could do this would be to install or have a shower knob with temperature and pressure controls separate. That way you wouldn't need to "test the water" each and every time you turned it on, and it would also minimize burns. These run around $110, an example of one would be Delta's T17478-H2O model, that also features a slow flow shower head and is labeled a WaterSense product by the EPA.

Finally, there is no need to shower every day. I once read a story of a 95 year old man with jet black hair, the "secret" to his lack of grey hair lay in the fact that apparently he only bathed once every 5 years! I personally think that is gross, but there is something to be said for allowing our natural oils to remain for a time (it is also easier to style your hair the day after a shower). I think a shower every other day is enough to keep you clean and healthy!

I was going to post more on ways to save water, but think I'll save that for another day! =)

Hello!

Hello!  My name is Jasmine and I'm a recovering shopaholic.  The sad thing is that most people do not realize that shopping is not only an addiction, but a harmful one.  The first realization came after our tax refund this year. Prior to being a stay-at-home mom I worked at a local Credit Union as a loan officer.  I helped people not only obtain loans and set up accounts, but I worked hard to teach people how to make a budget and live within their means.  At that point, I did live within my means, but after getting laid off and having two children things changed.  I wanted to maintain that "American Dream" mentality, and though I knew some cuts were needed, I figured I was doing well by shopping savvy.  I was subscribed to twenty "money saving" blogs and "deal-of-the-day" sites that helped consumers find good quality products for cheap.  I was loving it, I was able to purchase a designer $100 diaper bag for just $30 new - which is cheaper than most bags at Babies R US!  I felt I was being responsible, but things were rapidly spiraling out of control.  What started off as a few deals, lead to a $1000 per month habit that was hard to break.  For the first time in my life I was charging up a credit card bill that I could not pay off each month.  I justified this by saying I would be getting a nice tax return (as we have two children, one meager income, and both go to school full time), and I'd just pay it off when the time came.  The time did come and we received almost $8,000!  However, we had just that much in credit card debt racked up and I realized that something needed to change.  I realized that I was not being a good steward of my family's finances and ultimately God's money.  At that point I rewrote our budget to make sure that we'd start living within our means.  However, old habits die hard and though I was able to realize the smallest credit card bill since our marriage almost ten years ago, I was still under constant temptation to spend money.  The final "breakthrough" came upon my second week in my Geography class at Regent University.  The professor had us watch multiple movies, among them the youtube video called "The Story of Stuff": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM this along with many other things I have been thinking about recently pushed me forward to change my life and start becoming a "sustainable" Christian.