financially free

Faith— Not Emotion

Tue, 01 May 2012 15:22:00 -0700

a necessary reminder when it comes to work. if you have a minute i’d recommend reading the article, click the link above.

My friend and mentor posted this article on fb recently. He...

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 13:31:42 -0700

My friend and mentor posted this article on fb recently. He says,

“Was in Long Beach last weekend being coached by this woman. She truly inspires me, and has a conviction that Americans MUST begin taking care of themselves. She correctly points to entrepreneurship as an answer to our nation’s woes. Have you thought about supplementing your income by starting some type of business? There are a gazillion opportunities out there.” -Tom Springer

He was who encouraged Kyle and I to take this step and we did. We have heard her speak and it is amazing and true what comes out of her mouth. I encourage you to read it; click here.

Galatians 6:9

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 00:06:48 -0700

Galatians 6:9

nitty gritty.

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 21:24:00 -0700

So… Sure we all have a moment we feel convicted and you speak with passion and words flow like a river. It’s really easy to talk, but the hardest part is to do. You’ve heard me say we are committed to changing our financial state (and something deep inside of us has moved in a new way, and stirred like never before) but the reality is we’ve claimed to want change before.

We did pre-marital counseling and had a financial piece. We set goals, did our budget, felt good about it. Then we got married and didn’t really follow through. We weren’t spending more than we had but we were way too comfortable. We revisited our budget in a more formal scenario at least twice since, in order to buckle down. Each time thinking we’d be different.

Well here’s the facts: we’ve been married since august. we are now 8 ½ months married, with little to show for it, for how much we’ve talked. it is actually pretty embarrassing… here’s what i mean:

this is an example of our spending from mint.com in 2 different months from this year 2012.

Remember when i said you could keep us accountable… Well yeah. That is why i post this, not because it feels good (it sure doesn’t), but as a reminder of where we don’t want to be. Yes, you can judge us. At least $700 for food and dining a month?! for 2 young people?! With little savings & investments?! To me that represents living month to month. This is the poverty mentality, which is how most people function. We don’t want to be most people, we don’t want our security to be at the mercy of the economy.

Wealth is a state of mind.

Priorities lead to prosperity.

And if you are not as wealthy as you like, there is something you don’t know.

It’s true when I say we feel different. Each day you have the opportunity to choose something else and be new. But we have a lot of work to do to prove that we are different. I share this to be honest, to genuinely share our process with you. We no longer want to be the relapsing but the accumulating.

We have our solution, now we just need results. Let the work begin.

“whoever works his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits lacks sense.” -proverbs 12:11

decide freedom.

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 22:10:00 -0700

I have always had this craving inside of me, I never knew how to describe it, but at my best attempts I would say unsettled, chasing, yearning… I was a kid who was good at a lot of things, maybe not great at any one thing but I definitely got away with being successful at adding things to my resume. I had (have) such an array of interests that once I grew older and had “to pick a path” I always had a hard time making a decision, all of my options were appealing. Just to be clear, I believe it is always best to have options, but my problem was that I had little direction and no vision.

The older I got the more I wanted to travel, to pursue interests, build relationships, spend time with my friends to have lots of fun but all along knew I needed lots of money to do this at the rate I was going. People always say “find your dream job” and I tried. The problem was anything that I was interested in, like helping people and supporting at-risk populations didn’t pay any money. Enough to “get by” sure but not to really live. So I listened to this voice in my head, it said things like, “you’ll grow up one day and want different things,” “you’re just being selfish and lustful,” “you’ll be okay just getting by.” And I convinced myself that I don’t need money, I won’t be motivated by it and I’ll just pursue my education until I find what it is I was looking for. There were times the voice had to speak really loud because my desires never went away.

The funny thing is, we were created to dream. We were designed with desires! And the craziest thing is, our creator & designer delights in our dreams and desires because we do.

Kyle (my husband) and I had the opportunity to go to this conference with some dear friends and hear from a speaker they have been raving about. Our lives were forever changed. I was forever changed. All I can say is that it was an incredible experience (and you should go). I am writing this now because I believe that our lives will look different from this point on. I learned I don’t need to “find my dream job” in an attempt to define my life, because I am going to live my dream life. I don’t need a 9-4 (realistically 8-5) job. I can make my own hours, work from home and see awesome results in our bank statements. I don’t want to wait until I’m retired to have a house paid off, or wait 5-10 years to pay off all of my student loans. Why do we believe that is how it has to be? I see now, I compromised what I desired out of life for what I thought was possible out of life.

I saw people blessed far more than they even dreamed. (People living off 10% of their income and giving the rest away-WHAT?!) And don’t get me wrong, there will be some hard work in the process, but this will be hard work that is worth it. We commit to be responsible with our money, to cut the fat out of our budget, to give generously, and to think overall differently while making more than we ever have. I’ve been in school almost my whole life, I am going to graduate this June from my master’s program, and not once had anyone taught me anything like that before. We’ve decided freedom.

us at the conference

There are definitely more pieces to the puzzle and I’m sure lots of new pieces to come. I created this to be a space to document our process and progress. Feel free to join us on our adventure: support us, ask us questions & keep us accountable.