Harvest

The harvest season is upon us again. The masses are out in the fields. The roads are caked with mud, the air is full of dust and smells like the sugar beet factory - but people are working and happy about it.

This time has been a harvest of sorts for our little family. We have finally gotten correctly set up with the insurance companies at work, and Scott is reaping the benefits for a lot of the hard work he's done over the past few months.

I stopped working a year ago in July. We were essentially unemployed until April of the following year, at which point we started our own business (you can imagine how that goes at first). I've been asked how we've made it. And we have. Money is not a stress in our lives. Maybe a concern, but it's certainly not something we lose a lot of sleep over or argue about. Hopefully without going into too much personal detail, here's how we've made it:

Disclaimer: I'm recording this so I can remember these times in the future, as well as to give hope to those who are struggling with finances. What we do may not work for you, and that's ok - but it really, really has worked for us.

1. We save when times are good so we can live when times are not. No one ever knows when they might lose their job, or when their health may preclude them from working, or when the stock market takes a dive. But, we can prepare for those things. We saved a lot, even when I was just working part time in Texas.
2. We live frugally. We don't eat out much. We rarely buy anything at full price. We don't give our children everything they want. We live by the principle that some of the most caring words you can share with your spouse are, "we can't afford it".
3. We lived with my in-laws for almost a year. This was a sacrifice for us as well as for them. We certainly still had bills to pay, but this allowed us to stay on our feet. We are so grateful to Scott's parents to allow us to live in their home for so long. It was a time of physical difficulty for me as I dealt with a bad burn, nausea, pregnancy, and illness. Staying there was the right thing for our family to do.
4. We have a BUDGET. I'm actually pretty passionate about this. Up until a few years ago, I was anti-budget. I thought it was too restrictive. I've always been pretty careful with my money, but I didn't want a piece of paper to tell me what I can and can't buy. I also thought it had to be the same every month. Some months I had a lot of expenses, and some months I didn't have many. After we got married, I was still strongly anti-budget. Until we went to a little seminar given by a guy we went to church with. He had a degree in accounting and had designed his own budgeting software (see here). We bought it and gave it a try. That budget has saved our backsides many times. It is a zero-based budget that relies on the income you made the previous month. This was perfect for us, and continues to be because we've never been salaried, and thus have a different income every month. So, the money we spend this month is the money we made last month. There are certain things we only have to pay occasionally, like car insurance. We set aside 1/6th of the total amount every month, and it carries over until we actually pay our car insurance bill every 6 months. We also can choose to put a little each month away for things like vacation, or having a baby, or buying a car. We try to prepare so there are no big surprises. We keep money in categories for the dentist, the doctor, and car repairs for this purpose as well. We know we will get sick, we will have cavities occasionally, our car will break down some day. The most important thing about having a budget and setting it each month, is that Scott and I are able to have a conversation about money. We decide together how much we are going to spend on what each month. That has helped money to not be a stress in our marriage - and that's a wonderful thing. Do we stick to our budget 100% perfectly? Of course not. Whatever extra we spend just takes from what we have to work with the next month, or we can pull the money from a category we underused. Our budget also helps us be realistic about how much we spend and what we spend it on, because we record every expenditure into our software. It's a little tedious, but worth it.

Because of these ideas we use in our family, we are fine. We've made it through a tough year. I'm sure it won't be our last, so we will continue to save and prepare.