Budgeting: Battling the Shame-Monster

Today as I renewed our family's E-Meals plans and added a breakfast one to it (and no, I'm not getting anything to endorse or talk about them) I felt that yucky ol' shame-monster attack again.

Does anyone else know what I'm talking about!?
I live with this daily until I remind myself that God does not use shame at all and that that feeling is one of the enemy's fave tactics to use in getting me off track mentally.

"Therefore is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus." Romans 8:1

I was told by a wise person that self, you, me can be included in "those in Christ Jesus." Give yourself grace.

SO GO SUCK ON A LEMON SHAME-MONSTER.

Update to our Debt-Free story: 
Well we became debt free (except the house) last year in either March or April (see below post as to why I'm not mentally sound in remembering things right now) and friends, we fell of the wagon just a titch.

Why? The Car.

Oh for the love of Benji and holy things, the car. It's a trap that gets families back into debt I tell you!

I was going to tell you about our urgent need for more space in a vehicle, but it grossed me out to read all the excuses so I deleted that paragraph.

 This is/was a true need.

And with my business, I had supplemented almost all of the amount needed to purchase the used vehicle we had in our sights. Praise upon praise!

Did you happen to catch the "almost all?" So we purchased the new(old) car and still had to finance about 2,000. So we are back in debt right now for $2,000. And I'm sore about it.

There were so many things that persuaded us:

•  time ticking (I think that's always the biggest trap/set up), 
• the true need for more space,
• the availability of the car we wanted (It's pretty popular around these parts which I don't like that it's popular but oh well.)
•  the low(ish) mileage
• ultimately the price. It was thousands less- like $3,000-$5,000 less than every dealership in town.

Guys, don't fall into the trap. We could have saved up money and it would have been fine. Fine.

But there comes in the shame again.

Are we going to pay this off before summer- we hope so and that's our goal!

But back to the E-Meals.

You see along this journey of living as Dave Ramsey says, "Like no one else so you can live like no one else" I have realized that there are things I am NOT skilled at that I must outsource so I will remain a for the most part: calm mom.

Disclaimer: If you are truly in $1,000's of debt- then this might not be something you can do at this point. Look at it as a challenge and attack it with everything you have got along with your spouse and pray like no tomorrow to get it conquered as a team!!!!
IF YOU ARE MARRIED YOU CANNOT DO THIS SOLO. It doesn't work. I'm so sorry. You guys have to be on the same page- a literal budget page.

I suck at planning out meals.
The worst.
Breakfast is a joke. Lunch is such a mish-mash. Dinner - oh wait, that's not thawed out....

It's just not my strong suit. I can barely cook the meals let alone plan out an entire menu. I'm not this lady!:




Or what the hay- her either:


Can I tell you how good it feels to know what you suck at so you can just take that off the "Skills to master list??"

Other things I do not shine at: 
-Gift giving. I once gave someone a pack of gum and sunglasses. And by once I mean this past December. I'm an awful person.
-Clothes shopping. It might help my darling daughter if her mother bought an actual outfit instead of a cute shirt with balloons on it. "But it's got BALLOONS on it!!!" I've really had to learn that I need to buy the entire outfit if I can or else suffer later trying to match and waste time and then start randomingly yelling at the laundry basket.
-Ironing. We budget for dry-cleaning. Why? BECAUSE THIS IS 2014 and husband's work clothes and like Sweet Brown the wise sage says, "Ain't nobody got time for that!" No really, it used to take hours. HOURS.
-My hair. Bless my heart.
I'm on medicine that makes my hair fall out and yours would too if you had a hysterectomy at 26 years old. It's not cute. My fancy shampoo I had to order comes in today. So Katy/Brookshire community get ready to see me like this!:


I guess what my friend's trying to say is (Old School ref.) that you gotta know what you can't do and make peace with that and budget for it. And then keep on budgeting when things get messed up.

It's been years since we started our bi-week budget meetings and we are STILL doing them and we just learned that we need to keep the budget out to make changes when things come up. Y'all we just learned this!!!!!!!!

Like with the buffer amount. Dave Ramsey recommends a zero-balance budget sheet. And we do not do this. We are going off-canon from this because the buffer is there for all the "school fundraisers-spirit-night-tshirt-random-crud" things that happen in 2 weeks.

Beware of the false-sense of security of the buffer- keep a tally on that mess!!!!

I thought these might help a person out who is needing to know a little more about budgeting and the ins and outs and the stuff no one really talks about. Godspeed on your journey! And NO CREDIT CARDS!!!! (We have 1 that we have our ez-tag for our toll road usage and that is it- but we need to change it to just withdraw from our bank acct.!)

Most importantly: Grace.