How our journey began!

Several months ago Jason and I sat down weighed our options and felt it was time to make a big change in our lives. We decided to move to Midland, TX. This decision wasn't an easy one. We knew things just were not going well financially in Farmington and we would have to make a big change in order to make our families future better.

With the oilfield being slow all fall and winter we had been struggling financially. Jason couldn't get enough hours to bring home big enough pay checks to cover all the bills. I was babysitting two children full time to bring in more income for our family plus I began couponing to help bring our grocery expenses down. However despite our best efforts we still managed to slip a little more and a little more behind every month.

Reality set in that things were just not going to get better when we received a foreclosure letter from our mortgage company because we were almost three months behind on payments. We had hit an all time low. I've always been good with budgeting our money but this wasn't something I could fix on my own because our total monthly bills out weighed our total income.

In desperation and not knowing what to do I called my mom crying. I was afraid that soon our family would be homeless. We sat down with my parents and showed them all of our bills, our income, and our rapidly increasing debt. They offered to lend us the money to get current on our mortgage plus get a little ahead so this didn't happen again in a month or two. They also helped give our kids a wonderful Christmas that we couldn't have gave them given the circumstance.

Soon after this all happened Jason got the opportunity to transfer to another location with his company. We knew we had to take it or we'd just be back in the same boat in a couple months.

That brings us to the present... a couple weeks ago I was going through our checkbook, paying bills, etc when it hit me... something just had to change!! We are "making it" now (meaning we make enough to pay the bills and pay the necessities) but we aren't able to pay on our debt or save for the future. I had heard a couple friends mention "The Total Money Makeover" by Dave Ramsey so I headed to Hastings to do some research.

I found several books from Dave Ramsey but I knew we didn't have any extra money in the budget to buy them right now. I knew waiting until we could afford the books would just mean that we'd never actually buy them so I went onto Facebook and posted a status asking if any of my friends or family had the book to borrow. Several friends ranted and raved about the books and several more offered to send us a copy. Thanks to my uncle Royce and a good MOMS Club friend Dallas (and her family) we received a copy of "The Total Money Makeover" and "Financial Peace" with in a week!

Jason and I have read "The Total Money Makeover" and we are ready to take the challenge. We know it won't be easy right now but we also know that all of our hard work will pay off in the future! "If you will live like no one else, later you can live like no one else."~ Dave Ramsey