What We Want vs. What We Need

It is difficult to write anything for this blog right now. There are a multitude of different things going on that make paying down debt sort of not matter. My sister and her husband found out the baby they were going to adopt will not work out. It is a heartbreaking thing to watch from afar. I won’t get into all the details with you on this blog, but I do encourage you to go to their blog and see how God is working in their lives.

Paying debt and living on a budget is an unbelievably difficult thing. We tried to only spend $100 on groceries this month. We were committed to it and avoided buying a lot of the things we thought we needed at the grocery store. It sucked and we thought we were going to be able to end the month under that $100 goal. However, we did not.

We ended up spending $158 so far this month.

It’s not that we bought a bunch of junk food and lived on steaks and fancy food either! Honestly, it’s because we didn’t have a plan. We would walk into the grocery store without a list of what we needed or much of an idea of what was sitting in our pantry and fridge. It’s discouraging to fall short of a goal that seems so attainable. However, we have committed to not going back to the store until everything, and I mean everything, we currently have is gone. We realized that we were going to the store because we thought we needed to, when we didn’t. We had perfectly good food sitting in our pantry that we were avoiding because we didn’t “feel” like eating it.

Failing to reach our grocery goal really bothered me. I began thinking about “need” and what that really meant. It’s a word that I say all the time without really thinking about it. Watching my sister and her husband go through this difficult time has encouraged me to reevaluate how I view my life. I began to really think about what I needed versus what I wanted.

God has a way of driving lessons home for me. In the midst of me thinking about what I really need (and Stephanie for that matter), we sang a song in church this morning that had the 23^rd Psalm as the lyrics. The part that struck me was, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want”. I thought about that for a very long time and am still thinking about it. If I truly believe in Christ and what He did for me, I shall not be left wanting anything else. That’s a convicting thing to realize. I’m not saying I won’t want to eat or have nice things if I’m seeking after Christ. What I do think, though, is that if I am running towards Christ with everything in me, my view of possessions and what I think I need, will change drastically.

One of the greatest things about making a budget, and one of the crappiest, is it causes you to do a lot of self-evaluating. You no longer buy stuff because you “feel” like it and talk yourself into needing it. Honestly, Stephanie and I have had a few mini-arguments over such things. We will be walking around the grocery store and one of us (usually me) will pick out an item that we “need” only to have to have the other person say we don’t need it and to put it back.

Me: Look!  A sale on potato chips! They are so cheap, we have to get them!

Stephanie: Babe , why do you need that?

Me: What do you mean? They are tasty and only $2!

Stephanie: Put them back. We don’t need junk food.

Me: (Nodding in agreement while putting back the 4 bags of potato chips)

Okay, so maybe that’s not exactly what happens. But imagine seeing a couple arguing over whether they can afford chips or bread. It’s not a fun thing. It’s why we have decided to make the list BEFORE walking into the store because we are tired of making the other person upset and having those min-arguments in the grocery store. I can honestly say I never thought I would be at this point in my life, but I’m glad I am. I’m also glad I have a wife as wonderful as mine to show me incredible patience and love during this process.

Like I said before, it is very hard to be a newly-wed couple living on such tight budget. It would be wonderful to go out to dinner every week and do lots of fun things. However, that’s not what the good Lord has for us right now. We are sacrificing like crazy now so that later, we will be able to do a lot more.

I have been listening to Dave Ramsey a lot lately. He is always saying, “If you live like no one else now, later you will get to LIVE like no one else” and that is a very encouraging thing. Looking toward the future and knowing that this is just a temporary burden is wonderful. We are both excited to be able to use these experiences as a way to minister and encourage other people who are facing the same struggles.

We are working on a few things to generate some more income. We realized there only so many things we can cut out before there is nothing left. We even considered dumpster diving for our food! However, I don’t know if that will happen seeing as we aren’t homeless, but we aren’t ruling it out just yet. One of the things we are trying to do is clean houses. So, if you need your house (or apt.) cleaned, let us know! We will work for 2 hours for $65. Now, you get both of us so there is a LOT we can do in those 2 hours. If you would like us to work longer than 2 hours, let us know and we will give you a price. Please help us spread the word on this! The hatred for our debt is growing by the day and this would be a huge help in cutting into it.

Also, we have $930 in our debt jar! We will be making the regular $300 payment that we HAVE to make in addition to the $930 at the end of the month. It will be amazing to see our debt amount go down a little bit.

Thank you for all the continued encouragement and support!

- Brian