The banging of the head will now officially stop

Awhile back I said,

"HOLY NIGHT, we are $672 in the hole every month!!!"

Remember that?

Well, we aren't after all!!

There is much jubilation going on here at the Diva Ranch this morning. I haven't even told Paul yet, but I'm sure he'll be happy, to say the least. I have called my sister and bless her heart, I'm glad she's well again. I've missed her. She's happy for me, too, btw.

Okay, so here's what I did. It's really embarrassing, but I'm going to declare it here on my blog regardless. This financial management/debt reduction course we are taking (http://daveramsey.com/) has a workbook that you figure out your income, debt, expenses, etc. It's considerably eye-opening to say the least. Okay, so the worksheet where you figure your income, well...on Paul's income I took the total of one paycheck and instead of multiplying it by 2, I divided. Yeah. Pretty stupid, eh? So it had us living on less than $300 a paycheck, less than $600 a month. And what's worse is:

I DIDN'T CATCH IT. Aye carumba.

I have wallowed in misery and self-pity for 20 days, nearly 3 weeks, honestly considering declaring bankruptcy just to make it all go away. I did not see a way out. Neither did Paul. But I was bound and determined to do my best, so this morning I sat down here at my computer and wrote up the pro rata letters you send to your creditors that basically says, "I realize I owe you a metric ton of money, but we've fallen on hard times, we have three children and I can't find a job because even Wal-Mart won't hire me." Then you ask them for a moratorium on your payments for 30, 60, 90, or 120 days and ask them to drop your interest during this time, if possible, then ask them nicely at the end to have patience with you and sign it sincerely. I did this to our two largest creditors. I felt like I had accomplished much and with a warm glow in my heart, I decided to type up a new cash flow plan of my own, leaving out the things that we simply cannot pay out at this time, even though Dave Ramsey says we should. Things like car repair, savings, and fun things like eating out. It made it less overwhelming to see a spreadsheet with only the things we pay out, not a bunch of blanks staring me down. That done, I went on to find out the payoff on our personal loan, total the amounts of all the credit cards and then figure up about what we'll get when we sell the truck and boat, plus our income tax refund. It left a mere $995 for us to handle on our own. So THEN, that all being done, I made out another sheet with both of our incomes totalled up. Woah. That sheet said we brought in more than the last one did, the one I figured up in the workbook. I refigured. I refigured again. I rubbed my eyes, prayed that I wasn't screwing up something, refigured and came to the conclusion that we actually have $256.50 a month EXTRA.

We have $256.50 a month EXTRA!!!

So now, I am going to be able to figure up new monthly payments to the credit cards, albeit smaller than they would like to see, I'm sure. But they are payments nonetheless. We are not in the hole, people. I cried. Literally cried. I sat there on the phone with my sister, bawling into her ear. Got the phone all wet, too.

After I quit crying, I said, "Ya know, God's pretty smart." There was silence on the other end of the line and finally Sis said, "Uh....duh." I said, "No really! I mean, here I've been all desperate and panicky, trying to find a job and no one would hire me and my self esteem was injured and I was wondering just why in the world no one wanted me. God had His hand in the middle of it all! He wasn't allowing me to find a job because I don't NEED a job!" And Sis' reply was, "Nope. You just need to take a basic math class." Gosh, I love her. She's pretty wise for a little sister.

Oh, and I just looked outside...











the sun is shining.