A Blog Post 6 Years in the Making

This is a long story, and for that I apologize. Kelly and I six years ago decided that something had to change about the way we were living. We had been married for a year, we both had full time jobs, our new son was just months old and we were broke. How can two people that make good wages have to worry about how they will pay for groceries?
The problem was us. Unfortunately, we were "normal". When we wanted a new car, we bought it. When we wanted a vacation, we took it. When we wanted to buy a house, we moved into one sixty days after we decided to do it.
How did we pay for all of this? 60 month car loans, plane tickets on a credit card, and probably the last zero down mortgage our loan company ever got to write. We didn't have any money because we had many things that we "deserved", but couldn't pay for.
Enter the teary scene of a stressed out new mom not able to drive home to visit her family because we had no money to pay for the gas. That was when we looked for help. We found Dave Ramsey and signed up for his Financial Peace classes. 
The first crazy thing we did was sell my first, (and last) brand new car. My Honda Fit was so pretty and zippy, but expensive. I think once you sell your car and buy an Oldsmobile Cutlass for $600 cash you are committed to a goal.

We knew getting debt free would take us years, but we also knew even if we didn't follow the plan those years would pass anyway.
As far as we can gather we paid off $90,000 dollars in Credit Card, Car, Personal and School Loan debt. We would have an exact number but we had one computer die in the middle of the journey and we were too cheap to get the old budget sheets off of it! On top of that we cash flowed some modest family vacations, cars, and the down payment for our now house.
We don't use debt anymore, it did us no favors. The only loan we now have is our mortgage. That will be the target as soon as we get our 3-6 month emergency fund in place and up our investments. We will also loosen the budget up a little and start having a little more fun!
Kelly and I both made sacrifices during this process. We have both had second jobs, Kelly paid off his largest credit card debt (around $16,000) by delivering Pizza's at night three days a week for an entire year. We celebrated that victory by turning the cable back on! We went without cable for almost two years.
We also had Craigslist Christmases for the boys for a couple of years and Kelly and I have not bought each other a gift for Christmas or Birthdays since I can remember. We all get most of our clothes from Goodwill and Daryl thinks everyone only buys socks and underwear at Target. When we got him a new school outfit this year for Kindergarten it was like he saw the clothes at stores for the first time. :-)
We have always had the support of our friends and family on this journey. No one ever made fun of us or questioned our "cheapness!" For that, Thank You!
What we have accomplished hasn't sunk in yet. I still only spent $3 at Sonic for lunch today. I guess that's not so bad since the new goal is beefing up that Emergency Fund.
I hope others can get ideas or encouragement from us. We did it Honey, we doubted ourselves at different times, BUT WE DID IT!

We took a family picture this morning as the first day we woke up  with no debt!

Happy 94th Birthday Grandma!

Last Sunday we braved the wind and the snow for a very special birthday party. Grandma Hazel is celebrating her 94th birthday! We had some sandwiches and birthday cake with her and we got to see her new apartment. It was a very cool party. I did have a little problem with Daryl not listening. He gets around his cousins and Aunts and Uncles and goes bananas. Normally, I can settle him down, but I had a cold and he eventually got to me. I hugged Grandma goodbye but I think that was about it as I hurried to get him into the car. So I needed a few "cute" Daryl stories, maybe you need some too!

Grandma with 8 of her 10 Great Grand kids. Missing our Colorado girls!

On the 29th for Kansas Day, Daryl and his class went on a field trip to the Kansas History Museum. It is a day they open up the museum to all school kids to learn about the state. Kelly went with Daryl and I'm so glad because he brought back this gem.

Four boys come up to a demonstration of ladies spinning on drop spindles.
One Lady:Hi Boys, do you know what this is? (Holding up her spinning)
Daryl: It's fiber.
Lady: I'm impressed, your smart!
Too bad he didn't give me credit for him know all about spinning. :-)

Later when he got home:
Daryl: Guess what I saw at the Museum.
Me:What?
Daryl: A Pee Pee
Me: What?!
Kelly: He saw a Tee  Pee at the Museum.
.
Then my favorite story Saturday morning when Kelly and I talking about our first year with Daryl.
Me:We are lucky we stayed married.
Kelly: We, are we had a lot of stuff going on that year.
Daryl: It's like a fairy tale when the football player married the 4-H player.
Me: Awww I like that.

Finally, here is my latest spin. 8 ounces of some fiber I dyed at Yarn School almost three years ago! It is all washed and ready to be knit. Into what, I'm not sure. :-)

100th Day of School!

There are a lot of things I would like to blog about, but they haven't happened yet. We are getting a new table, but it's not here yet. We are going to be debt free, but not until Feb. 12th. I will finish my green olive pullover, but not today.
One thing that is happening today is it is the 100th day of school. I don't think when I was in school anyone cared about how long we had been in school until May. Now they make it a super fun day. One of the things the kids get to do is come dressed like they are 100. We have had way too much fun with this. Kelly made Daryl a walker and Grandma Rosie and I found some mustaches and white hair paint. I can't wait till the end of the day to find out what his day was like!

Before

After

Three Day Weekend

Had a great weekend with Mom and the boys! We have been relaxing at home most of the time. In the three days I only got in one run, but it was my longest in awhile at 6.15 miles.

I did knit a little on the sweater that does not end. I'm almost to eight inches of the 13.5 I have to knit. So that is progress. But the most interesting thing I've been working on is a new spin. I've had this 8 ounces of BFL fiber since I was pregnant with Alex. I dyed it myself at Yarn School. It is spinning like a dream and I think it will make a smooshy three ply. Will hopefully get that done this week as I have A LOT of yarn that needs washed.

Today, Mom got the staples out of her knee. So glad she is starting to make progress. She is getting around better so today we went and got pedicures to celebrate. It was fun!

Sometimes I just like to go through the pictures on Kelly's phone. I don't know what is going on in these two but I thought they deserved to be posted! Happy Monday every one!

The Knitting Black Hole

The good news is mom is at home (our home) and getting along a lot better. She had knee replacement surgery on January 9th and that first week was a little rough. More for her than me!

The bad news is I took three knitting project with me to stay with her in the hospital and in four days I only finished one. I blame my Olive blouse. It has hit the point where I need to knit straight for THIRTEEN inches. In regular yarn this is a long time, in lace weight yarn I could be dead before I hit thirteen inches. I knit on it constantly for three days and I got a grand total of three inches. :-( I've now been knitting on it on and off for five more days and I just hit four inches! :-|

OK, more good news. I have been getting in a decent amount of runs in again (after the holiday craziness) and I'm feeling good. Hoping to do a six mile run this weekend. I did the math and last year I ran 621 miles. So my running goal for this year is 720 miles. So far I'm doing good! I won't call is a New Year's resolution because no one keeps those. This is my 2015 goal.
Other goals are to knit three sweaters for me (I need to work down some of my yarn stash).
Last goal is to read 12 books this year (at least 6 non fiction)

I would revisit last year's goals but I didn't really do many of them so why bother. This is a new year!!  2015 is going to be GREAT! The first 14 days have been great already!

BED HEAD!

Pirates at Church

One of my pastors when I was young said, "God doesn't care what you wear to church as long as you are there." So when Daryl asked if he could wear his new pirate costume on Sunday Kelly said No Way!
Then mom said what does it hurt? So dad changed his mind. Daryl got the costume for Christmas from his great grandparents and wore it for two days solid. He got many compliments from fellow parishioners. We love our church because they love us. Even our son who from time to time comes in costume!

My first completed knit of the year was a Zuzu petals cowl. I like it but I was hoping it would be more green. It only took a few days to knit because I was on vacation for New Years. Right now I'm sitting with my mom in the hospital after her knee replacement surgery. I brought three different projects so I shouldn't get bored!