Unemployment is scary....

So, I am not a big risk taker. I take risks, but they are calculated so some would say they are not risks at all. Well, Ian and I are getting ready to take a big risk, one neither of us chose. As of 8/31 he will be officially unemployed and we will be "living off the land." There are a lot of positives about this-

1. more quality time
2. time to fix some things up around the house
3. it's made us take a long, hard look at how we spend money
4. we've found out what we can live without (cable will be shut off on Thursday!)
5. we've found out what we can't live without- fresh fruits and veggies!!

But, this blog is more about how we got to this point and the path God brought us along. About 6 years ago we did Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace study as a small group through our church. Because of this study and the structure of it we paid off all of our debt (except the house) in about 2.5 years. It felt awesome to pay off the final loan (my car) and be "debt free." The next step Dave recommends is saving 3-6 months of living expenses in an emergency fund. (sidebar- I know Christian’s who don’t agree with this approach because it makes you put your trust in your fund instead of God. Totally cool for them, we’ll all still see each other in heaven! We think of it this way: cars have seatbelts to help you in case of a crash- we wouldn’t not use our seatbelts and trust God to save us. He gave us the financial ability to have a fund- we did not stop giving to get that money, we did give up some things of the world that we wanted, that can’t be bad. OK- I’m off my soapbox) Anyway- it was going to take us about 3 years to get our fund and I was discouraged. I wanted it to happen faster- of course! We decided to set a halfway goal and celebrate when we got to that point so it would be mentally easier to tackle.

About 4 months into it, Ian called me from work and said, “I think I found our emergency fund money.” He explained that IBM was buying his company and they would have to pay us out on the Corio stock we owned. And… it was just the amount we had been working to save, the WHOLE amount! Emergency fund funded YES.

3 years after that, our church started a capital campaign to raise money to build a new youth building and children’s building. The goal was 20 million dollars. Our pastor, Don, kept encouraging us to sacrifice something significant to make this work. His motto was, “Not equal giving, but equal sacrifice.” Ian and I racked our brains for what we could give up that would feel like a sacrifice, and couldn’t come up with anything. We fasted and prayed about it and Ian told me what it was- half of our emergency fund- YIKES.

So, 2 years ago we gave up half of that fund and last weekend we had our first high school service in the new building. It is unbelievable. We had over 1000 students that first night- God is good. Over the past 2 years we decided to set aside a certain amount of bonuses and extra money to re-build the emergency fund. Even in tough economic times, Ian has received enough bonuses to put the fund back where it was 2 years ago. I see God in each and every piece of this, I hope you do to.

So, as we get ready to use our emergency fund (as unemployment is an emergency of sorts) we are very grateful for God honoring our sacrifice in so many ways. Our trust is in Him, though I’m anxious about what this next step looks like day-to-day. And, I would highly recommend Dave’s program. I can’t imagine being in the situation we are in today, without the financial plan we’ve had the past 6 years. Not to steal his title, but we do have a lot of financial peace because of God’s guidance in our choices over the past 6 years. So- get debt free!