Every Dollar Counts

Yesterday was the 4^th of July. Originally, Stephanie and I planned on going to this hotel to hang out at the pool for the day. It was going to cost $30 for admission ($15/person). Normally, I wouldn’t have any qualms with spending that money for a fun-filled day! However, since we both have a goal in mind, we realized how difficult it is to part with that money. It’s not that we were having sleepless nights about spending it, but it wasn’t as easy as it normally would have been. Every dollar counts to us now.

Well, we ended up getting rained out yesterday. So, no money was spent, which was nice. However, it made me realize how much thought I give, or don’t give, to what I am spending my money on. Like I said before, I nickel and dime myself to death. A few bucks here, a few bucks there, what’s the difference? How can $30 hurt us? And while it may not hurt us at all, I think our mindset is beginning to change. No more can we say, “Oh, it’s only a few bucks” because we know what that could mean for us achieving our goal.

If we are serious about our goal, and I think we are, we will be doing all we can to achieve it. If I told you my goal was to run a 6 minute mile but I never ran, would you think I was taking my goal seriously? Of course not. I am the kind of person who makes a lot of goals in my mind but then have a hard time putting them into practice. I work out once and I think, “I’m gonna work out every day!” and then it’s a week before I do anything. I think of the glory associated with the goal instead of the sacrifice needed to achieve it. So, for me, it was nice that yesterday I was thinking about the sacrifice.

Our society tells us to do whatever we want and there won't be any consequences. As a young married couple, we are supposed to travel and go on awesome dates because when we have kids we won’t be able to do that anymore. It’s hard to be a newly-wed and have to be stingy with our money. There aren’t many couples out there doing this, or at least any that I have come across. I guess most of that is because not many people have debt like us.

All that to say, we are coming to the realization how much sacrifice we will have to make over the next 17 months. However, I think the goal of paying off debt is only part of it. For me, I want my kids to be blessed by the decisions I make now. I know that Stephanie wants to be an encouragement to others who might read our blog. See, we aren’t going to give a bunch of advice on how to handle your finances, we will leave that to Dave Ramsey, but we do want to show people it is possible to be completely happy and not live beyond our means.

- Brian