Mission 19% complete! - 100th post

Today, God and I have reached 19% of our debt payoff goal in less than a year!

That's like paying $1225 a month to pay down debt. That's also the cost for rent for a one bedroom apartment, so I feel like it really helped to give up housing for 1/2 a year (stayed in car for 4 months, and Jasmine let me live rent-free for 2). Besides, I made serious sacrifices with windfalls (refunds, insurance payout, tax refund) and began using cash, which helped me be more frugal.

If we get a teaching job that pays just as well as this last one, then we could continue the momentum. I hope to get a tax refund next year as well.

I deposited part of my tax refund (the part I have received) into the account used to fund the house renovations. Using cash to prevent debt is as good as paying off debt towards the renovations.

This is my 100th post, BTW.

Life is exciting.

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Economics: A Result of the Fall

by Jim Tonkowich

September 26, 2008
On Tuesday I was part of a conference call with Ed Lazear, Chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, to discuss “the nation’s economic challenges.”  The call was oriented to economists and over my head.  But you do not need to understand the fine points of securitizing assets, Alt-As, and the LIBOR rate to know that the heart of the problem is bad debts.
“Economics,” said the eminent British economist Lionel Robbins, “is the study of the use of scarce resources which have alternative uses.”
After quoting Robbins, Thomas Sowell in Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy, writes:

What does “scarce” mean?  It means that what everybody wants adds up to more than there is. …There has never been enough to satisfy everyone completely.  That is the real constraint.  That is what scarcity means.

We have unlimited wants.  They range from necessities—basic food, clothing, and shelter—to luxuries—caviar, custom tailored suits, and mansions.  Our limited resources prevent us from having all we want and economics looks at how we operate in that world of scarcity.  How do we use our limited resources to satisfy our unlimited wants?
Because economists study scarcity, it is fair to say that economics had its origin in the Fall.  In the Garden of Eden, there was no scarcity.  The man and the woman worked joyfully to bring order to God’s creation.
After the Fall, God said to Adam:
Cursed is the ground because of you;
       through painful toil you will eat of
      it all the days of your life.
It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and
      you will eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your brow you will eat your
      food until you return to the ground, since
      from it you were taken; for dust you are
      and to dust you will return. 
      (Genesis 3:17-19)
“Painful toil,” “thorns and thistles,” and “the sweat of your brow” is the language of scarcity.  Economics was born.
And one day economics will die.  When Christ returns and we live in the New Earth under the New Heaven, there will be no more scarcity.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. (Revelation 22:1-3a)

This in no way means that economics is evil or unnecessary.  After all, medicine is also a consequence of the Fall that Christ’s return will render obsolete.  What it does mean is that between the Fall and the Second Coming, scarcity is a fact of life and so no one gets all he or she wants.
Much of history is the story of people trying to overcome scarcity.  We do it by good means—hard work, investment, entrepreneurship—and by evil means—cheating, stealing, conquest.  And we do it with debt.
“’Debt,’ simply put,” writes Theodore Roosevelt Malloch in the Trinity Forum’s journal Provocations, “is a means of using future purchasing power to obtain goods or services before they have been earned.”   He sees debt as a tool that can be used judiciously with good results or carelessly with dire consequences.
Unfortunately debt, for many Americans, has become the means of salvation.  Scarcity says we have limits. Debt can allow us to live beyond our limits (at least for a while), thus artificially narrowing the gap between unlimited wants and limited resources. That is, we begin to believe that debt will rescue us from the effects of the Fall at which point debt becomes a false savior, an idol.
Sooner or later all idols fail or, worse yet, they turn and devour the idolaters—be they on Wall Street or Main Street.
I do not believe all debt is evil and I am not going to advise anyone on financial strategies.  Nor do I know what should be done next to repair the U.S. economy with its $13.8 trillion GDP, $10 trillion in national debt, and $40 trillion or so in private debt.
But wise fiscal policy—personal policy as well as public policy—takes into consideration reality.  We live in a fallen world of scarcity.  An economic utopia where we all have all we want is not an option.  And no amount of debt—public or private—will change that fact.

I'm moving...

Jasmine's mother in law is moving in with her permanently starting in September, so I have to be out. 

Back to living in my Honda. 

I was planning to move out anyway in October to save rent money. September is a little early because there are some hot nights in September and sleep is impossible. The up side is no rent to pay. 

I guess another up side is that moving always makes me re-evaluate my "stuff." Today, I woke up and begin trashing things I decided I don't need, or don't need in material form. I finally organized the last of my tax documents (the last 4 years) so I can scan them at school tomorrow and get rid of the paper. I threw out students' work from this past school year and some notes from my computer programming studies four summers ago. 

I'll keep de-cluttering until everything fits in storage. Right now, nothing else can fit in storage. When I leave Jasmine's I'll have to put everything in my car. I can't live comfortably in the car when it's cluttered.

June snapshot

June Monthly Snapshot:

 "If you pray for God to move a mountain, don't be surprised if the answer to your prayer is a shovel."


1. As of June 15, we paid off $10,485 in debt.

That's $1,165 a month on average.

It's hard to keep track of how much exactly is paid off because when I make a monthly payment part of it is applied to interest so the bottom line is not clear without pulling all the bills out and doing the math every single month - which I don't do. However, I've done a review of the balances left and determined that $10,485 + interest is what we've paid off so far.

2. completed a financial stress test

3. cooked some meals at home.

4. started a new "everything journal" because the last one was lost.

5. posted items on TPT

6. really missed Jefferson, especially since he had to have surgery and I'm not there to be with him.

7. practiced guarding my financial situation, by having real talks with Asana about whether she'll be able to pay rent in the condo. Otherwise, I really need to move back in.

8. continued to build up savings

Using the EF for medical expenses

There have been times in the past when I passed up the chance/need to go to the doctor because of money. No money for copays or prescriptions, if they ordered some.

Monday, I went to the doctor and had to go back today for test results. He has prescribed several medications. I will have to go back on Friday or Monday and may get yet another prescription. I believe he is really trying to help me find out why I have shortness of breath, and he carefully looks at all my medical records to see if there are other things I need to be concerned about (like my recurring anemia).

Well, I spent a total of $130 this week so far. Didn't bat an eye - because medical expenses are part of my EF (since they are not a regular expense for me, but they are necessary).

You need to let that go.

I was thinking about a story that happened to me in January, but I never blogged about it.

January


It was a beautiful day to be outside, but I was inside attending a workshop by Michelle Singletary, a personal finance columnist. Her advice is awesome and biblical. She has youtube videos. Look her up.

Asana invited me - I knew she was good person to have in my life the moment God introduced us.

Anyway, a comment made in the seminar made me think about Uncle and Aunt Theo and the burden I feel for their financial situation. On our way to our cars, I shared this burden with Asana, and her older sister walked up while I was talking. When I was done talking, her sister said, "This is really bothering you. You need to let that go."

I said, "Yeah, it does bother me because they're family and I care."

She said, "You need to let that go."

I said, "Sometimes I think maybe I shouldn't even go visit..."

She said, "Who says you need to go visit? What's wrong with not visiting?"

I thought about it.

She said, "You need to ask God to take that burden away from you, because it's not healthy. You need to let that go."

She was right. I was way too emotionally involved in their financial situation. Furthermore, there was nothing wrong with me not visiting their house, sitting down, and talking like old times. Staying away would help me avoid wanting to give financial advice or sharing what was working with me (which can create jealousy).

Aunt and Uncle Theo had already rebuffed my offers of assistance 3 times. In November, I shared Dave Ramsey concepts that were working for me. In December, I offered them DR CDs, and in January, I invited them to Michelle Singletary's workshop. They declined all of these offers, and the last time Uncle Theo was very irritated at the invitation to MS's workshop.

It was time for me to let them go.

I told Asana's sister that she was correct. Then I got in my car and didn't stop praying until I felt the burden rise and float out of the window. It was a beautiful day.

Jefferson's Whimpers

June 21, 2014

Jefferson had surgery today. I wasn’t too concerned, believing by faith that all would go well, until I talked with the vet on the phone after surgery and heard him whimper in the background several times just because of the pain. It was a hernia that he was probably born with, but now it’s all repaired.

Well, yesterday I took myself to the doctor to try to find out again why I have chronic shortness of breath. I went because my health insurance premiums have gone up by more than $40 the past year, so I want to raise the deductible. However, before I do that and have to spend more out of pocket for doctor’s visits, let me get the insurance company to pay as much as I can get them to pay. So, I went back to the doctor.

I had to pay a copay ($35) and get medicine ($50). So when I tried to pay the vet today, my card was declined twice. The horror! I haven’t had my card be declined in soooooo looooong! The humiliation still felt the same.

My first thought was that I didn’t have enough money in checking to cover Jefferson’s bill AND my own doc bill, but that’s not right. I got an extra check from my second job for recently completing PD training. I forgot that was coming. It came just in time to cover my medical bills (which would have been covered by emergency fund money anyway). I can’t figure out why Jefferson's bill was declined other than to remind me how it feels to be broker than I am now.  

I went online, moved some money from the EF to checking (even though there was money in there already), then Jefferson's bill went through. Strange.

For the rest of my life I will hear those whimpers and remember that the reason I missed being there for Jefferson today is because I'm committed to getting out of debt.