Less Judgement, More Acceptance - My Analysis

I began this "31 Days of Less and More" just 8 short days ago because I wanted to figure out why I keep circling back around to certain stumbling blocks in my life. 2013 has been dubbed as "My Year" for self-improvement. It's been an incredible journey but I realize I haven't accomplished all the areas I thought I would have tackled by now. A friend asked me to join her in this challenge and I decided to join her as I wrap up 2013 with a bang.

I've never considered myself to be a judgemental person. I thought today's blog focus would be fairly easy.  

Hah!
             Boy, was I wrong.

It's easy to trick ourselves into thinking we have certain areas under control in our lives. Fact of the matter is, we don't! Sure, pat yourself on the back that you've succeeded in not getting that mocha frappacino every morning or make it to bed by 10 pm at least 4 nights out of the week; but, have we really changed our personal nature? I hope we have all collectively improved from 5, 10, 20 years ago...but we are not at a point of completion. We deceive ourselves.

Last night, my husband and I had one of our epic, knock-down, drag-out fights that you'd probably pop some popcorn and pull up a chair to watch. I was self-righteous and perfect in my thinking and my husband was not getting it. What's wrong with him? At least, that was my story and I was sticking to it! Until...

Until a dear friend whom I knew would be the right person to confide in and respond with a loving and productive answer, reminded me of where I am in the grand plan of life. I am not that awesome. Wow, ok. She challenged me to not keep score and go home to apologize anyway. I did as she said. I knew she'd check to see if I followed through with her advice.

I came home. I apologized. I went to sleep.

Fast forward to this morning: I sat at work at my desk awaiting the tardy tech to arrive for our appointment. I remembered the challenge despite how physically and emotionally exhausted I felt.

"Oh great", I thought as I read today's challenge was on judgement and acceptance. "God, do we have to do this now?" Ok. I'll listen. I read the blog and realized I had been judging my husband all this time. Who am I to judge him and how he is or is not leading our family spiritually, practically or relationally? Did God himself ordain me?

My girlfriend's reminder to me came flooding back to my memory.

My ego has been knocked down a few pegs today. That's ok. God is going to prune me even more in these final months of the year. I can't produce more fruit without being pruned.

My husband and I had a rare lunch date today and spent time admitting our faults and realizing we did, in fact, improve from how we would have handled the same situation even a year ago. We accepted where we are at and agreed to do even better next time.

The beginning was rocky

We've become passionate about our desire to get out of debt and begin "Living like no one else"! If you recognize the quote, yes we are HUGE Dave Ramsey fans. There are no gimmicks to his thought process and his plan is just common sense chunked into "baby steps" that are easy to follow. We read his book Total Money Makeover 2 years ago this month! I read it in 1.5 days and DH read it in a few days too. We were sold out and addicted from that moment. The lightbulb had finally turned on!

The baby steps are:
Baby Step 0: Get current on all bills and live within your means (stop borrowing!)
Baby Step 1: Set up Baby Emergency Fund (BEF) of $1000
Baby Step 2: Pay off all non-mortgage debt
Baby Step 3: Save 3-6 months expenses aka Fully Funded Emergency Fund (FFEF)
Baby Step 4: 15% into Roth IRAs and pretax retirement
Baby Step 5: College Funding
Baby Step 6: Pay off home early
Baby Step 7: Build wealth & give!

The above is a simple plan but requires a lot of discipline and saying "NO" to everyone in your life!

We discovered this plan just before we would have nose-dived into a black abyss. When we did our first budget, we quickly realized why we had more month than money! The budget listed out all minimum payments and all bills we currently had. There was no wiggle room to save or go out! In order to get to baby step 1, we had to sell some stuff. We started putting stuff on ebay we no longer needed and saved up $800 between Aug-Sep 08. (Hooray!) We began cutting things that weren't necessary and paying attention to our money. We had finally gotten our $1K saved just in time for DH to lose his job.

That was God's first test of our maturity. We passed with flying colors! With that money saved, we didn't feel super-stressed and knew we'd find him something else. Sure, we cried for a moment to let the emotion out. He did find a job just as the money was running out and my income was sustaining us. There was no dining or fun during that time because we made up our minds not to fall back on credit cards. We replenished our BEF with his new job paying better and by January 09 we were moving on to Baby step 2! Along the way Murphy has popped up and slowed us down in paying off debt but as long as we breathe air, the unexpected will occur. In 2009, we paid off over $55K ($8k tax return, sold Volvo for $17k and only owed $9K so the rest paid off credit and all other debts paid were from our income and paying attention)!

January 2010, we dropped FIOS cable to get even crazier about getting out of debt. Hulu.com and Netflix provide a much cheaper form of entertainment. We had to save cash for a replacement to DH's Jeep and so we paused paying off debt to get him a newer vehicle. We've been cash-flowing a lot of things recently but our debt reduction is still in our sights. This month we've sat down and we've found more things we are willing to give up to become debt-free sooner. Our goal is to be out of debt by next summer! Our 10th anniversary is next spring and we hope to take the kids on a trip around the States in celebration before moving on to baby step 3!