$10

I don't know about you but I always get super excited about the holiday and I'm so glad there here. I love to thought of giving and enjoy purchasing gifts for my loved ones. I enjoy seeing loved ones during the holiday too. Then comes the holiday hang-over. Where you feel like you've hemorrhage money for the past month and a half. I don't go over board at all, and I always give myself a manageable holiday budget and stick with it, but still as soon as January hits I'm in a money panic.

This money panic hit on Wednesday. I haven't really done up a budget since I started staying home. Matt and I cut back a lot once I started staying home but it was time to sit down and crunch the numbers. Well Lord only knows the panic I was in when I realized that we've been in the red every month. Not so far in the red that we're drowning but enough that I began to panic, which didn't help my holiday hangover feeling.

I've been very diligent with our money. But it's hard. It's very hard to go from two incomes to one. It's hard to know that you don't have the extra five or ten dollars to do with it as you will (yes, that is usually the wild and crazy Jennifer splurging on a want that is five dollars). For instance, while I was out at the mall walking around with Esther and Caitlyn we hit up a kids clothing store. I purchased five items for Lauren for next season. A Halloween shirt, a Christmas shirt, a fall outfit, and a pair of tights were the items I purchased. Each item was on sale for $3.99 or $2.99 (total bill ~$15). I thought I did good, nothing huge, right- WRONG. I didn't have the money to do that. I think that is when the reality of our new budget hit me. That which use to be a small splurge was now an expensive buy.

I have since chipped away even more at our budget. I've given up my membership at the Y (sad but not worth going into debt over), I've scaled back on my already cheap prepaid cell phone, we cut back what we put away in my retirement fund from $100/month to $25. We also took a chunk of money from savings and put it towards our one car loan so that will be paid up by the end of the summer- freeing up another $232 a month. After all is said we were out of the red! I got most excited though about my call to the phone company.

It really blows my mind how much phone and internet cost. We have an unlimited phone plan since 75% of my phone calls are long distance to family back home it makes the most sense to do it this way. We're able to bundle the phone and internet together saving money there too. Even with all that we still pay close to $100 a month for the both of them (have to factor in taxes and fees), so I called to see if there was anything we could do to bring down the cost. He told me that what we have is our best value and then after fixing a mix up on their end (such a nice guy he was) he also gave us a $10/ month discount for the next twelve months (then advised me to call back next year this time and see if they can do anything else for us). It's only $10 but it's God's blessing.

I try each day to look for God and be conscience of His daily blessing. Some days I have to look hard, like this past Wednesday. This was a hard lesson for me to sit through but it was one that really pounded into this head that God knows what we need- but he still wants to hear from us. He still wants us to talk to Him and ask for what we need. He craves a personal relationship with us and we should want the same thing. I'm glad that on my walk through our household budget, He was right there handing out the ten dollars this mommy needed.

"Reach out for God and find him, though he is not far from each one of us." Acts 17:27