I had a question from my dear friend Kim posted on Sunday’s blog, and I just wanted to take today to answer it. Kim wrote,“Tracy!!! I love your blog. I have my notebook and I started my spreadsheet today. Where do I put things that are paid every few months?” I am so glad you asked this Kim. To illustrate my answer I am going to use my car insurance. Matt and I pay our car insurance every six months because we get a discount for paying it in advance rather than paying it monthly. So every month I have …
A Plan to Stop Juggling… Besides Dropping the Balls
One of the most difficult things about juggling finances is that you feel like you can never stop. Some people are constantly dropping balls, others just put some of the balls down until they can afford to pay them. The juggling act is constant and exhausting. You never know when the next ball is going to be thrown in or how many there will be. What I am going to be giving you today is so incredibly valuable because it is not just a way to manage the juggling act, it is way to end it. I am so excited …
Beautiful Sunday
What a georgeous day to be alive! The weather is perfect, their is no wind (rare for OK), and my garden is calling me. My sweet Luke has been sick all week from whatever he caught in the church nursery last Sunday, so we have decided that for this week we are going to skip the next wave of baby yuck and stay home 🙂 Hallelujah for an actual day of rest. So, today I am taking the day off from blogging. I will be back tomorrow and we are going to start looking at more of the specifics of …
The Gift of Gratitude
It is not a fun thing to take a child shopping when all they do is whine and cry and want everything. I have friends who never shop with their children because of this phenomenon. My son Noah used to do the same thing. He loves toys and getting surprises (as most kids do). Well, we had reached the point where shopping with him had become a complete nightmare, until my husband and I came up with a plan. We call it “A day to buy something.” We started a star chart and let Noah (and now Ava) earn stars …
“I gotta little change in my pocket going jingalingaling…”
OK, so some of you may have no idea what my title is talking about. It’s the first line of a country music song, but for me it’s from the movie “Sweet Home Alabama”. But the heart of it is exactly what I want to talk about today. Do you remember the feeling of your Mom or Dad giving you pocket money that you could spend on anything you wanted? Even if it was just a dollar, you felt wealthy, like the world was full of possibilities. For me as a child, life was all about candy, so just having …
The Power of Percentages
“Deride not what I say because of its simplicity. Truth is always simple. I told thee I would tell how I built my fortune. this was my beginning. I, too, carried a lean purse and cursed it because there was naught within to satisfy my desires. But when I began to take out from my purse but nine parts of ten I put in, it began to fatten. So will thine.” ~from “The Richest Man in Babylon” by George S. Clason. OK, I love this book so much that (although it is not Christian) I’m just going to say… You …
Your Business, Your Freedom, and Your Responsibility
Self-employment can be a liberating, extremely rewarding way to earn your income. Many people who are self-employed are doing exactly what they love and want to be doing. They are their own boss, set their own hours, and consequently have a lot of flexibility. However, it can be a very difficult venture when you are first getting your business going, and also when you are laboring in a business that may not go very far. When you are at the top and a huge contract doesn’t go through, or they are late on payment, it is you and your family …
The Storehouse Blessing
It is a wonderful thing to have abundance to draw from in a time of famine. Do you remember the story of Joseph in the Bible? In the story, Joseph goes through a horrible journey where he is sold into slavery, accused, betrayed, imprisoned, forgotten, but finally he is brought into the place of his destiny. For Joseph, the place of his destiny was preparing Egypt for famine. He began to take a percentage of all of the harvests in the kingdom and stored them up for the coming drought. Through his amazing stewardship and wisdom from God, Egypt was …
Perfect Timing
My precious little Luke was born with a tiny little hole in his neck. It is hardly noticeable. In fact, it looks like a teeny dimple or a freckle, but I always knew that it wasn’t supposed to be there. At four months old, our pediatrician told us that it was probably a sinus tube that had not closed properly in the womb. At that point, it had drained several times when he had had a cold. He told us that most likely Luke would require surgery. Well, Matt and I immediately began to pray for God’s healing in Luke’s …
Happy Mother’s Day
Being a mother is one of the most incredible gifts I have ever been given. From the moment that I knew that I was pregnant with my darling Noah, I was different. I was a mother. My heart was enlarged and I knew that I would do anything in the world to keep this little life safely growing inside of me. Seeing his beautiful face for the first time was a magical moment. After a grueling 24 hours of labor, and then an emergency C-section, I was worse for wear. Exhausted, swollen, drugged, and shivering, I lay there waiting to …