Conquering Debt

Roger and I have been attempting to pay down our debt from the moment we said "I do." Unfortunately, like many people, we found that it was a lot easier to create more debt and just make the minimum payments. Now, any rational human being can tell you that this is not the way to get rid of debt.

A couple weeks ago, Roger attended the Midwest Evangelical Free Church of America conference in Nebraska. He arrived home with lots to tell me, and a set of CD's entitled Conquering Debt God's Way by Bruce Ammons. He had attended a session in which Mr. Ammons shared his testimony and gave a brief overview of his system for conquering debt. He spoke about how he and his wife paid off a vast amount of debt in only 5 months, and then went on to pay off a 30 year mortgage in 5 years. And, before they did this, they were constantly finding themselves $200 in the hole at the end of every month. Obviously, this got my attention! We are fortunate to no longer find ourselves in the hole at the end of the month, but there definitely isn't much extra money by the time the next paycheck comes! If a couple who was routinely finding themselves with more month than paycheck could find their way out of debt, then surely we can, too!

Roger and I have both listened to the set of CD's and are completely excited about giving this a go. The biggest leap of faith will be tithing. Ammons challenges us to make a commitment to pay God off the top. Before taxes, before bills, before groceries. Now, I have seen God come through for us financially in so many ways, but 10% of our gross income? Malachi 3:18 says, "Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing." For me, this entire prospect is absolutely terrifying and horribly exciting, too! What will He do in our lives, if we take this leap of faith?

One of the steps that Ammons presents is to "sell your stuff". He jokingly says that if you sell 4000 items at a garage sale for 25 cents each, you'll have a $1000 garage sale! Honestly, there's a lot of truth in that. Roger and I have been looking around our house, and it is sinking in that there is a lot of stuff here that we can certainly live without. We have a basement full of stuff that we can live without. If we couldn't live without it, it wouldn't be in the basement. Then there are the two storage units. We're confident that we can get that down to only one storage unit. Maybe less. All the extra money will go towards debt.

I spoke with my sister on the phone this afternoon and told her about selling our stuff. I think I inspired and motivated her to do the same. We are going to have the biggest, hugest garage sale ever come spring! Everything for a quarter! LOL!

Right now, our focus is to pay off Roger's car. It has the fewest number of payments left and will also leave us with a sizeable sum to apply to the next debt on our list. We already have an extra $200 to put towards the next payment!

I am going to pray that God will keep us motivated and commited to this goal. It will not be easy for us to do. We have a very bad tendency to buy whatever we think we want at that moment. I am horrible about eating out, rather than taking my lunch to work with me. We have gotten into the habit of buying Connor a toy everytime we go to Walmart. (This means, no more trips to Walmart with Connor!)

I have to admit that we haven't gotten up the guts to start tithing yet, and I really believe that God is leading us to do that. Pray for us! We're going to need it!