It’s hard with this blog to find the motivation to give
updates. Honestly, I hate talking about money. I always feel like I could be
spending my time thinking about so many other things than cash and how to make
more and save more. However, money plays a very important part in our lives. We
need it to survive. People abuse it in spending too much and holding on to too
much. Money reveals the true character of someone. If you give someone money
(no matter the amount), you will be able to see what kind of person they are in
how they use that money. So, because of that, it is a worthy topic to discuss.
Stephanie and I are learning a lot about who we are as
people through this process. We are realizing how selfish we are and how much
we envy other people. As I have said before, waking up on Saturday at 8 AM to
clean houses is not my idea of a wonderful Saturday. I would rather sleep in
and spend the day being the most unproductive human on the planet. I have
realized that the more you are selfish, the more you are selfish. If I spend my
day thinking about myself and what I want, I will spend more time thinking
about myself and what I want. It’s like a snowball of selfishness that gets so
big, it crushes everything in its path.
This last Saturday, we left our house around 9 AM and didn’t
get back until almost 4:30. We cleaned 2 houses and made $130. It was awesome,
but we realized how hard this is going to be. We are trying to clean as many
houses as possible before volleyball season starts as she is a coach and she
won’t have as much free time. After our entire day of cleaning, Stephanie then
went and baby-sat for a few hours Saturday night and then on Sunday morning I mowed
my parent’s lawn for a few bucks. We have 2 more houses to clean this Saturday and
probably 2 more the week after that. This is all on top of us both working
close to full-time jobs.
If a few things work out like I think they will, we will be
making another $1000 payment towards our debt at the end of the week. How cool
is that!? We have made $1,300 so far in 5 weeks when we started on this little
journey with another large payment waiting in the wings. It’s funny, I enjoy making
payments. It gives me great joy to push the “Submit” button and watch our debt
shrink. I feel like I am sticking my 2 middle fingers at my computer screen and
saying, “We aren’t going to be a slave to you for much longer!” We hate our
debt (in case you couldn’t tell).
Also, we are growing together through this process. You want
to find out a lot about your spouse? Spend 8 hours with them driving all over
town and cleaning houses. By the time you are done, you are so exhausted, your
true self comes out. You don’t have the energy to “try” at that point. Have Stephanie
and I gotten into arguments because we are so tired and cranky? Absolutely!
But, I can feel the strength in our marriage growing. It’s a wonderful thing,
really. We are working together as a team when we clean those houses. She has a
part and I have a part. We do it together and get done quickly because we want
to get out of there. We don’t have time to bicker about the small things, until
we get in the car that is.
Dave Ramsey always talks about finding ways to increase your
income. It’s actually a lot easier than you might think. This whole cleaning
thing, we are doing it by word of mouth now. Hopefully we can get a schedule
down to where we go back to the same houses on a consistent basis. But we aren’t
some cleaning pros who have a website and business cards. Our friends tell
their friends and they call us. If you are looking for extra income, cleaning houses
is a GREAT way to do that. We even had to turn someone away because we are all
booked up! That is a great, and strange, feeling to have.
We are excited to see what God has in store for us going
forward.
- Brian
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