Well, Stephanie and I made through our first Christmas together. One of the perks of being married is that Christmas is a full day of eating and opening presents. For us, it was different than most people. We had a VERY small budget to buy presents with. We went to used book stores, dollar stores, and Stephanie made a few gifts. We wish we could spend a lot more on our family, but I think they understand. We were even able to get a tree! We went to the tree place and looked for the smallest one they had. I picked up it and the guy sold it for $20. It was SO small it actually fit into Steph's BACKSEAT! It was fun though, I'm sure we will remind each other of that story for a long time.
I think there is a certain advantage to not having a lot of money when you first get married. You learn to enjoy the times you get to go out to dinner. Honestly, we only go out 3 or 4 times a month. Yes, one reason is that I'm a basketball coach, but the main one is that we just don't have the excess in money to drop $50 on a meal every week. Christmas was especially exciting because we were given gift cards so we could go out! We appreciate that a lot more than somebody else might. With that being said, we are looking forward to the day when we will be able to go out on a more regular basis and spend more money on presents. But, that will be a while.
Budgeting is still a tricky thing for us. It seems our bills are changing every month or there is a holiday or someone's birthday. However, we are getting better. Budgeting is NOT easy, don't let anybody tell you otherwise. It's so easy to spend money "because we deserve it!" even though it's not in your budget. You think, for some reason, that because you haven't gone over your budget, you have somehow earned the right to buy something stupid or go out to dinner when you shouldn't. But there is a sense of accomplishment and freedom in putting limits on yourself and keeping within those limits.
For now, we are still in that guest house and were told we can stay there for as long as needed. That was such a huge answer to prayer and we are so very excited about not having to move out in 3 months. Now, we aren't planning on staying there forever, but it's nice to know we can ATTACK our debt and not worry about finding a stupid apartment. We are trying to live off of Stephanie's income and use all of mine towards debt. My job is based largely on commission so hopefully I can start to make more and more the better I get at it.
Those are all the pertinent updates for now. We are making some progress in our debt. We have paid the student loans down to close to $7,000 in the last 6 months (Right now we are at $34,688). Hopefully we can get that TOTAL below $25,000 by June.
Thank you for all of your support and encouragement!
