Tire Tracks

I've been making tracks all over the surrounding areas, doing in-person follow-ups on job leads. I never understood the value of this until this week. My Father-in-law offered this counsel to me and it has really paid off.

Our mortgage company is restructuring our payments over the next several months. This gives us another month to plan, secure more income and make this thing happen.

I've made bad decisions in the past, but if there's something I've definitely learned in my life, DO NOT ignore calls or letters from people collecting a debt. I know, sometimes it's hard to deal with it, but you have to do it. Luckily, Sheria and I knew this and we communicated with our mortgage company promptly. Our prompt, clear communication has bought us valuable time and opened the window of opportunity wider for us to make this happen. If you are in debt and you have lenders contacting you, absolutely do not ignore them. It will heave a world of hurt on your head later if you do. If you are prompt, polite and articulate about your situation, I've found they will nearly always make some arrangement with you. The catch is, you have to uphold your end. You have to make good on the arrangement.

Here's a major problem in society today. I think a growing number of people are realizing the death trap of debt. However, many people are not doing what it takes to get out of it. Sure, they'll go and look for another job. But what kind of job? It's tough for someone to be in a job they've always loved and then work weekends on a job they hate. It may seem beneath them. But the reality of it all is this. You sacrificed your inegrity, your financial stability and your name to get yourself here. Now it's time to sacrifice a little comfort to get out.
That means you can't go to the drive thru as many times as you'd like when you're hungry. It means you may need to deliver pizzas or work awkward hours for a while until things get better. I have come to terms with this. I hoped for other things to come through for me that I waited for. There's a time for that, but not when you're in debt. Actions have consequences. I am owning up to mine now. If I don't want my boys to be raised by a sitter 3-5 days a week, I should've taken action before now to prevent this from happening...cut spending, save more, stay away from loans and interest, etc.
Unfortunately, I was pushover about a lot of these things. Now we pay the price for it.

God has been good to us. We're in trouble, but things could've been much, much worse. I know there are people out there who have lost their house, others who have been forced to declare bankruptcy. I want to avoid much much worse. I want to get out of this altogether, and we will, whatever it takes.

I have some promising leads on many part time jobs. Well-paying full time jobs are much more scarce than they used to be in this economy unless you have more advanced education...and even still, it's hard to land one. I've pretty much determined that in order to make this work, unless by the grace of God I can land that ideal eight to five somewhere, I will need to have multiple sources of part time income.

Here's what I have now that is certain.

Part-time on-call on-demand IT/Networking gig. Income, unknown as of yet.
Part-time ministry-mentoring job in my Dad's ministry. Income, $300 a month.
Part-time musician job, playing guitar and gigging on the weekends. Income, around $400 a month.

Here are part-time jobs that I am following up on heavily, of which I currently stand a good chance of landing. Both of these also have chances for advancement.

Part-time Murphy USA cashier. Income, about $800 a month.
Part-time Staples Tech Associate. Income, about $750 a month + possible incentive/sales pay.

Here are other jobs of which I have received positive remarks but no interviews/intent to hire as of yet. Income is still uncertain. Number of hours offered is also unknown.

Pizza Hut delivery or team member
Woodforest Bank customer service rep.
Radio Shack Sales Associate

Actually, I do have an interview with Radio Shack tomorrow at 2:00 pm, but I have not received any intent to hire just yet.

Other places I've applied:

CVS Pharmacy, 2 locations. Currently not hiring(contrary to what their website says).
Play 'N Trade, Applications only, no positions currently available.
Car-Mart Albertville, position already filled.
Railroad Bazaar Music, taking apps only, no positions currently available.
Sanmina-SCI(2 different apps). They are call-back only.
Phoenix Huntsville, position already filled.
McDonald's Team Member, follow-up tomorrow.
Huntsville Utilities, Collections Dept.
Pizza Hut Arab, Follow-up saturday.

Keep in mind, I only need to make about $15,000 a year for us to get things straight. I can already exceed this amount if I can get one part time job, when you consider the other smaller forms of income that I'll have in addition. Staples appears to offer the best pay so I have really been working to stay on top of it, but there are other hooks in the pond too. I have other leads that I have to keep available to me...nothing is certain yet and I need certain more than anything. If I can get two part time jobs, getting out of debt is going to move a lot faster, much faster actually.

Tomorrow I'll dig those tire tracks deeper.

Muscling Through The Noise

I have an interview tomorrow at 6:00 pm.

This week is going to be tight, but we're just going to have to pay some bills and trust God with the rest.
I'm going to by a small notebook whose sole purpose of existence is to record every single transaction we make.

I have a rehearsal this week, if I can get the songs together for it. If it goes well, I could possibly be looking at a gig this weekend which should pay a little bit of money, make ends meet until the next payday. Trouble is, it's somewhat of a gamble. It will take money to put gas in the car to drive to this rehearsal. And then once its over, there's no absolute guarantee that they'll have a gig this weekend. So either I spend a little bit of money in hopes that they'll get a gig this weekend or I do nothing.

The ideal situation would be that after my interview tomorrow, the hiring manager would ask me when I can start. That would be an answer to prayer actually. But then I run into the likely scenario that he'll hold my first check...it is very common for an employer to do that.

I also have a possible one-time work opportunity with my father-in-law who is into contracting/carpentry/remodeling, etc. The work normally pays very well, but it is all in how soon he is able to get something definitive from his client.

I'm not afraid of honest, hard work. Never have been, never will be. But the work I do needs to be profitable. We can't spin our wheels financially anymore, I need a stable job or else getting out of debt is going to be considerably more difficult.

God has been good to me. Prayer is what keeps me grounded everyday. My best days lately are the ones where I've prayed the most. It can be hard to pray when there are lots of pressing matters on your mind...but if you can muscle through the noise and be still everyday...it makes a difference. It definitely makes one for me.

Blessings!

Doomsday

The electricity was not cut off today.
Which means we will have a narrow window of time to pay it on monday before they cut off.
But it looks like that is the least of our worries.

Our most recent mortgage payment which was scheduled for this past monday has bounced. We learned this just today.

It doesn't make sense on paper, I budgeted this past week carefully. We kept our checking transactions to a minimum and we had a little cash that we used for any expenses we've had over the past week.
So WHY has this happened? I just don't understand. It doesn't add up. Something somewhere went awry. There were no other bills that were scheduled to be debited in this past week. Additionally, the balance in our account at this moment does not add up with our budget, by a pretty wide margin, actually. There are a couple hundred dollars that are suddenly just not there anymore, considering that we've made only a few low-amount transactions, mostly for gas(and when I say gas, I mean not a lot of it. Just enough to get to work when the tank is on empty)...but even most of that was paid through cash and not our checking account.

Did I make a mistake? Do we have an unauthorized transaction on the table that caused all of this? Not knowing is almost worse than the fact that it even happened at all. The banks are closed right now. Tomorrow we're going to get a printout of our transactions and see exactly what happened and we're going to enroll in online banking so we can hopefully keep closer tabs on our weekly transactions.

I've texted my sister-in-law to see if I can get a job in fast food. I'm sick to my stomach right now, to be honest, and angry. It is frustrating to me that I have put forward so much effort to budget everything out, make it all work and yet still, this happens. And it is equally frustrating to me, the part of me that knows that it is probably our own mistake...it was most likely no one else's fault but our own...although I hope my own shame will be relieved by looking at the statement printout and find that the mistake was on someone else's shoulders and not our own.

Where did $200 go?

It is equally frustrating to me that over the past month or two I have [weekly] put out multiple resumes to various places and none of them have given me any leads. I guess I am now starting to feel the sting of the economy. It's not so bad for someone who already has a good job and who has their money in control, they won't notice the difference. But when you've defaulted on your mortgage and need a job, it's a different matter. I'm probably one of innumerable average joes who not only lost their job but also realized they'd rather work a cash register than face foreclosure.

Praying for a job. Hoping in God. Prayers are appreciated.

The Slow Drip

So this is my third post during week one of our trek toward debtless living.
I have been offered a part time job doing computer work for my wife's office. It's not really going to be a 40-hour-a-week job, it is only going to be by demand...however, on top of the fact that every little bit definitely helps, my wife's boss gave me a lead on a guy in albertville who might possibly be looking to hire someone for a 30-hour-a-week job. 30 hours a week...plus computer work at Sheria's office...plus possibly gigging on the weekends as the guitarist for Rudy Mockabee in Huntsville? I can work with that. Of course, once more, nothing is certain. And honestly, if I get a callback on one of this plethora of resumes I've put out the past month, I'll likely take it full speed ahead. Right now, at this point in our lives, a bird in hand really is worth two in the bush. We need something stable as soon as possible. That is our goal. Friday is doomsday.

Please pray for us.

Next Step Slightly Forward

Given our current financial state, my wife and I do not have the time and resources for me to poke around for a dream job.

Thankfully, after adding up the numbers, we've realized that in order for us to balance our monthly budget and get the ball rolling on saving some money and eliminating debt, I don't need to be making an incredibly large amount of money. It looks like [realistically] I only need to be making at least net $15,000 a year.

Fast food jobs are easy to snatch than others, for a few reasons. I learned today that as far as food/service jobs go, pizza delivery is actually not too bad. Including tips, glassdoor.com reports that the average pizza guy makes between $18,000 - $20,000 a year. But here is the flip side to that. After doing some basic research on this job, I learned that there are risks. Apparently, pizza guys are in one of the top 10 dangerous jobs in America. If you think about it, this make sense. What if you have to deliver a pizza to the house of a total creep? What if he tries to rob your cash purse at knife point? What if they have vicious dogs? Furthermore, this occupation requires a great deal of driving which means the chance percentage of a wreck occurring will significantly increase.

But here is the question I must ask myself. If Pizza Hut(for example) were the only app/resume that gave me a callback, would I be willing to do the job? Would I be willing to do what it takes to get out of debt and do what is right for my family?


That's a hard question to answer for some...but funny how when the need is great, suddenly the dirty, stressful or more dangerous jobs don't seem so bad anymore. If anything, this whole financial crisis we've reached has been teaching me that sometimes I have to stop measuring the risks and just take what I get. I'm not saying that being cautious or thoughtful is a bad thing, it's just that sometimes life requires you to suspend your reservations so that you can step out of mere survival.

I hope that is what I'm doing. And when I say hope, it is a devastating hope. It is the kind that is inevitable, unavoidable, where you have to hope because those are the only bullets you have left to fire.
2 years ago, I never saw myself as a future pizza guy. I had a lot of dreams and ambitions and delivering pizzas wasn't one of them. But now things have changed...no, I don't want to live the rest of my life as a pizza guy, but maybe, just maybe, if this app/resume works out I can go up from there.

At 5:30 I had band rehearsal. As it was getting started, my wife's boss called me. She needs someone to do basic IT work around the office...and she wanted to offer me the job. It's hard to say no to opportunity. It may or may not be a job that will meet all our financial needs, I don't know the hours or demand yet. But it's a start. I have to start somewhere.

We have until friday to pay our electric bill. Unfortunately, pay day is monday. We payed a mortgage payment today which gives us a little more breathing room with our lender. Crunch time again. Today I put out multiple apps/resumes and tomorrow I will likely do the same, to everything from computer tech jobs to flipping burgers to cleaning toilets.
Tomorrow night we go to a life group meeting with fellow church members...which I'm certain will be some much needed encouragement for us.


I think what I'm most afraid of in all of this isn't the work or the difficulty, balancing the hours with the family or even the sacrifices which must be made. Rather, I think I am just afraid of failing.

Hmm...that's quite a thought. I think I'll close with that.

The First Day Of The Rest Of My Life

Starting today, I wish to chronicle everything that has happened and will happen to my wife and I on our quest to get out of debt. I need accountability and this is one of many useful God-given outlets I have to work with to achieve the goal of accountability.

Currently, my wife and I have about $1800 in credit card debt, we have a mortgage whose principle balance is around $75,000. We have a loan which is evolved into a payoff of around $8000 to $10,000. We also just purchased/financed a car recently for around $13,000. We have a bank account that is severely negative, over $600. We have no emergency savings to speak of.

We don't consider ourselves frivolous or materialistic, we live in a modest house, we don't drive brand new cars, we don't take vacations in Cabo San Lucas. These things largely happened because up to this point, we didn't take charge of our finances, we didn't want to live with the discipline of giving purpose to our money.

Last month, our water was nearly cut off. We had a close call with that and friends to thank. I lost one of my jobs a month ago. I have some good leads and if one of them comes through, it will be much easier to get out of debt. However, if something doesn't come through, we will be under budget for this month according to how much money we are spending both on bills and minimum living expenses. Our mortgage is already behind. We may need to lose our internet connection temporarily because if we pay one, we won't be able to pay the other, my wife has to have money to put gas in the car to drive to work this week. This is a snapshot of our financial dilemma.

I am sharing these things because I am serious now about change. This year we have worked to get out of debt and we have been met with a great deal of personal failure. I am now to the point where I am ready to not go back where we've been before now.

Debt is not merely a monetary issue, it is a spiritual one. Because my wife and I were not patient enough in the past to save for the things we wanted to buy, we used credit. We failed to pay off the items in the no-interest promotional period, go-figure, and so now interest is added on. If we continue paying only minimum payments, one of our credit cards whose principal would have been around 900 dollars will actually total to several thousand dollars being payed over several years at a 26% interest rate. As of right now, we already have several hundred dollars in interest that have been added. This is just one example. Think of all the good that could have been done with that money. That money could have gone into a high yield account which over time would build to a sum of money that could pay a college tuition for my sons when they are older. That money could have been given to my church or to the needy. We could have given this money to excellent charities like charity:water or world vision. We could have been in a financial position to support a child overseas through Compassion International. We could have paid cash for my dentist appointment last year instead of financing it on yet more high-interest credit. Generally speaking, debt is created because at some point in the past, we lost sight of the bigger picture. That's what I did, anyway. I imagine many here will relate to this.



We have sacrificed a great deal of freedom and peace to arrive to the place we are.
These past couple weeks have felt very dark to me...feeling as though I am at the mercy of potential employers or chase home financing. The weight of bad decisions is starting to take its toll.

Here are current consequences that we personally have deal with, all because of debt.

• Stress in our marriage. We fight more often, we are ill toward each other more often, the integrity of our family suffers from being preoccupied by stress
  
  
• Stress on others, the people we've borrowed money from, the important things we've had to sit out because we couldn't afford to put gas in the car or miss a day of work
  
  
• The possibility of me and my wife needing to work full time for an extended period of time until our debts are stabilized and we no longer in the risk we are in now...meaning, we will very possibly be forced to put our sons in day care, one of them being an infant only 6 months old
  
  
• Our plans to begin homeschooling our 4 year old son will likely be interrupted as we will not be home as often as originally planned due to increased work hours.
  

I'm sure I could name other things, but I think I've made the message clear. As I stated earlier, we don't consider ourselves materialistic or frivolous. But we aren't disciplined and we need to be consistent and patient. We have not been until now.

Sometimes, to be faithful, you just have to start small. I'm starting small now, as we stare defaults, penalties and collections in the face. Your prayers and accountability are appreciated.