the engaged budget

when we got engaged, i knew we had to start actually planning out how we spent our money. we both made enough as single people to not really think about it that much. neither one of us were crazy spenders, so we just lived paycheck to paycheck and that worked fine for us.

but we were engaged. we were supposed to be grown-ups. sure i was only 19, but i was going to act like an adult and no one could stop me.

the first major financial decision we made as a couple? buying a car from bryan’s parents without any money to do so. [did i mention i was 19 and bryan was 20?] bryan’s parents have the gift of generosity and they were happy to give us the car with the agreement that we would pay them back as we could.

the first 8 months or so we started to communicate about finances. we talked about goals, did some tentative budgeting and began to check with each other before spending our money. i specifically remember that we both spoiled each other with tons of nice and expensive christmas gifts because we knew that it was the last year we’d be able to do so without thinking the better of it.

at the beginning of 2009, we had close to $13,000 in debt. most of it was for my car loan which we were paying interest on and the rest was what we owed to bryan’s parents.

having many good ideas about money management, and being self-controlled and decently wise with our money, we also enrolled in financial peace university which is a dave ramsey program.

i’ll be writing more about what we learned from f.p.u. next week, but until then, i’ll leave with this hilarious comparison showing how similar my father-in-law and dave ramsey look.

the honeymoon budget

being engaged for 13 months wasn’t exactly our preference, but it was our choice. it was long, believe me, but i’ve never regretted our decision. there were lots of great things about a long engagement, but i’ll stick to one for this post. we were able to pay cash for our awesome honeymoon.

elizabeth point lodge, amelia island, fl

so how’d we do it?

a couple months after we got engaged, after some of the initial wedding planning craziness was behind us, we started thinking about the honeymoon. we looked at some different options: cruises, resorts, hotels, airfare. we talked about what the ideal honeymoon for us looked like. i knew that i wanted a beach, a comfortable room, and no planned activities. bryan agreed so that ruled out a disney honeymoon or a cruise. we wanted something remote, but not so remote that there was nothing to do.

our view of the beach

after we had an idea of what we wanted, we discussed how much we’d be able to save before the wedding. bryan’s parents were so generous to give us a sum of money for our honeymoon as a wedding gift. thanks again mom & dad! they were even more generous to give us our gift early, and we used it to book our flights early and pay for the deposit on our lodging.

we searched through many options and decided that while an all-inclusive resort might be nice, it was likely going to be more expensive than booking our own lodging and eating out. in the end, we spent about 2/3rds of our budget on lodging and travel expenses and saved the rest for food and fun.

yummy room service!

we put a monthly amount into a savings account over the course of the next year and had all the money we needed for tons of food, fun and all those unexpected travel expenses. and we didn’t have any credit card debt after we got home! in this, we were able to truly start fresh financially as a newly married couple. God is so good to us!

i’m sure you’re wondering, what was the most fun thing about our honeymoon?

mini golf, of course!

click here to start at the beginning of this series!

the wedding budget

bryan got a great deal on my engagement ring. he ordered it the day after valentine’s day so it was on sale. it’s beautiful. a simple white gold band with a round cut diamond in a six-prong setting. the diamond is color e, and you can’t see any imperfection with the naked eye, which they tell me is a good thing.

i loved the ring, i loved him and loved that he got a great deal on it. that’s my kind-of man. : )

that’s how our financial journey as an engaged couple started.

with the excitement of starting a new life with bryan and being the nerdy financially-minded person i was, my mind began to reel with budgets, paying off debt, and planning for the future. for some reason, the fact that i was going to be married made it much more important. but we had a different budget to be worried about: the wedding budget.

and so begins the story of one of the greatest acts of generosity we’ve ever received.

first of all, my dad was so generous and gave me a figure to work with. we were engaged for 13 months so he gave me the money in small increments as he could. i booked the cheapest, biggest reception hall i could find, booked the church, bought the dress and found cheap photography. i spent very little money on the save-the-dates, invitations, and other things like programs and decorations. we borrowed a lot of things from friends.

i didn’t really budget as much as i purchased everything cheaply. our wedding was near and i had spent about half of the original figure. that was pretty good considering all we had left to pay for was food for everyone!

we had already found a great and incredibly cheap caterer and had booked her for the day. she ran a very small catering company so she didn’t even require a deposit! which was good news when we found out the bad news:

my dad was layed-off from his job.

just like many other dads and workers, he was one of those affected by the economy slump a couple years ago. that was it. there was no more wedding money to be had.

at first i was angry. then i was sad. then i resolved to make it work. i told my parents that we would just do cake. our guests would understand. the invitations had been sent, so should we send postcards so they know there won’t be a meal? how do you politely say: sorry, you won’t be getting a free meal, even though you were expecting to?

and then.

my mom called me and said, “someone just called me and asked if they could pay for all of the catering.” yes. you read that right. someone wanted to pay for about 1/2 of my wedding. who the heck loves me that much?

i was immediately in tears. so was my mom. we were so happy, but so confused. should we accept such a huge gift? i wasn’t so sure. but the giver insisted and my mom accepted on both of our behalves. they wanted to be kept anonymous and my mom has kept a huge secret from me and everyone else ever since. and she’s not good at keeping secrets. so that’s a big deal too.

it’s still crazy to me. i mean, it’s just a wedding. it’s just food for our guests. but it was important to me that our guests felt loved by us in that way. a simple meal can say a lot. and whoever gave us all that money knew how important it was to me.

that act of generosity has shaped bryan and i so much and will continue to inspire us to give of our money freely. when we are asked to give, i think of all i have been given. and the ways that God has blessed us through anonymous givers or our parents or friends. i [literally] can’t thank the giver enough. it wasn’t just money or food. it was love, it was God’s work, and it will affect our lives for a long time.

click here to start at the beginning of this series!

the single budget

hopefully it’s obvious that this is just one of many stories about our financial journey as husband and wife. but if i had to just write one post, neigh, one sentence about our journey it would be this:

God has done a great work in us, blessed us much and always provided.

hopefully that sets the tone i’m going for. i take no credit for the way that God created bryan and i, nor the protection, wisdom, and blessing He’s given us to make wise financial decisions throughout our lives. while we’ve worked hard and learned a lot and have had great luck in our financial decisions, God has been in charge and leading the way.

so i’ll try to start in the beginning. ish.

i married an amazing man. he is the hardest worker i know. he’s always been like that too. he always had a job in high school, he paid for a lot of his own possessions. he got good grades too! he’s amazing. i remember him working 60+ hours a week the summer after we graduated high school. he worked hard and he was never tight on cash, because he never let himself spend too much of that money. he planned on going to iowa state in the fall. i was so impressed by that 18-year-old.

meanwhile, i got a great job right after i graduated high school. i loved it so much that i decided to skip the typical college route. i didn’t have a car at the time, but had a steady and decently paying job, so i bought a brand new car and took out my first loan. a friend helped me get a pretty good rate, and i didn’t mind a car payment. i didn’t know how else i was going to get around.

i also applied for the first credit card offer i got in the mail. i thought it might come in handy and i could get a cool picture on it. yep, that’s how a 17-year-old thinks.

by God’s grace, i knew that i shouldn’t carry a balance on my credit card, so while i forgot to pay it off on time once or twice, i never got charged any interest or had outstanding credit card debt. i’m so thankful for that!

bryan went to iowa state for a couple weeks. after learning he didn’t have as much savings as he thought, he dropped out. he decided he didn’t want to rely on his parents money or student loans to get through school at that point, so he just worked and applied to go to dmacc, our local community college.

bryan worked around 30-40 hours per week and took 2 or 3 classes at dmacc each semester. he always paid with cash. i continued to work, got a few raises and lived stress free. both bryan and i pretty much lived paycheck to paycheck as we navigated the adult world. but we never bounced checks or went into consumer debt.

and that gives you a picture what we were like in our single years. then we got engaged.

more next week!

an interesting take on college these days

read the full article here.

let me start out by saying that i didn’t go to college. therefore, in a lot of ways, i agree with mr. stephens. and in my series about our financial journey, i’ll be writing about how much of a blessing it had been to us [not just financially] that i never went to college.

here are a few of my thoughts on the article:

first of all, not everyone can start their own business, or website or invention, etc. and that’s pretty much all he offers for options if you don’t go to college. on the other hand, i can honestly say that i have become a pretty great administrative assistant with no formal training. so i can see what he means by “other options.”

second of all, i would definitely drop out of college at 19 if i received $100,000.00 for the next two years. i’m sure receiving that fellowship took a lot of work and involves a lot of continual work, but really, why would any 19-year-old consider college over that?

third of all, i believe there are a lot of great reasons to get a college education and that it’s possible to do so without debt. we’re living proof. and i would highly recommend striving to pay cash for college, it makes your education that much more worth it.

what do you think?

aaaaaand we have a graphic

i mentioned in an earlier post that i’m going to be documenting our financial journey of 3+ years on the ol’ blog this summer. i’m always trying to move toward the title of ‘legit blogger’ and i was bound to start having graphics one of these days.

so, there you have it, folks. a graphic for my next blog series! i designed it myself, with the help of the most state-of-the-art technology of course: ms paint. beautiful stuff.

look forward to next wednesday for the introduction to the series. i’m actually really excited to write about all of this. we’ve had a lot of fun, learned a lot of good lessons and most importantly, God has proved Himself an amazing provider over and over again. all of these make for super fun stories for me to tell!

may tuition update

may was a long month. a very long month for this girl. i think may always seems long, every year. between spring busyness [let me hear you shout weddings!], general anticipation for summer, and the whole 31 day thing, it’s just long. add working more than ever, teaching 37 kids for three days, and waiting for some very important news all month to those and you’ll get a very. tired. lisagrace.

i could go on about how stressful life has been this past month, but i don’t want to bore you. oh, and the important news? look for that in the next post. and no, for the last time, i’m not pregnant! : )

but hey! it’s june. and all of the above has been resolved, so life is on the up and up.

because of lots of extra work for me [and triple paycheck month-love those!] and bryan starting his job at fareway, we set a hefty savings goal of $1,200.00. i’m happy to say we did that and $17.95 more! less than 75% to go!

tuition for 2011-2012 school year: $9,654.00
savings at the end of may: $2,517.95
difference: $7,136.05
percentage saved: 26.08%
percentage left to save: 73.92%

if you have a little extra time, here’s a funny student loan story, this is why i’m so glad God has given us so much wisdom with our finances. they make it so easy to take out more than you need in student loans!

at the end of april, we officially filed the paperwork to apply for $5,500 worth of unsubsidized stafford loans. we’re certain we won’t need any more than that for the upcoming school year and are hoping we don’t need any of it, obviously, but it’s a just-in-case precaution. we were approved for quite a bit more than that, but we were careful to cancel all the other loans. when you fill out your paperwork, they automatically assume you want the maximum amount you were approved for so you have to cancel the ones you don’t want. isn’t that silly?

anyway, a couple weeks ago, we got a check in the mail. a $6,200.00 check. just a check that said something about a refund on the memo, no note, no explanation, just a big fat check. we’ve never taken out student loans before, so i thought, maybe we’re getting our loan for next fall early, but why and why so much? if it wasn’t for the fall, then it was for this past year, and we didn’t pay even close to that much with the scholarship that bryan got. why would we need more money after everything’s done and paid for?

already long story short, i guess because we just filled out our loan paperwork, it activated a student loan we were approved for last year and they sent us a check! while buying a boat was tempting, we took that check straight to the financial offices and straightened it out. we didn’t want to owe that much money later. : )

april tuition update

this whole month i’ve been stressed about this tuition thing. things seemed so discouraging all month long. until this week. why am i ever ever anxious when i have this promise?

God is definitely reminding us that He loves us and desires to take care of us. i’ve been working more hours at the coffee shop since the new store has opened, so that’s been a temporary blessing. bryan finally got a job! he is going to be working at the fareway meat counter. we found a great deal on a moped which will make it possible for bryan to get to work. (although, extra vehicle expenses are no fun either…) a dear friend connected me to an opportunity in which i will make an extra $300 for three days of work in may. praise Him!

God also continues to teach us generosity, we wrote a few more checks this past month to summer missions trips. i want you to know that i don’t say this to impress you or feel good about myself, believe me, i wouldn’t say it all if i didn’t want to encourage you in this way. this has been something God has been teaching me a lot about lately, and i want to take this moment to share with you. also, check out this message from our old church. super convicting.

my friend, mikki, who is in our amazing connection group shared the best perspective on tithing i’ve ever heard. she and her soon-to-be husband are both dental students and thus living off of student loans for the time-being. but she said something like this: whenever we tithe, we’re technically paying 7% interest or whatever it is on that loan money. but who’s to say that God’s work isn’t worth 7% interest?

that hit me hard! what an awesome way to think about giving to the Lord’s work. so i want to say, before i update you, that if we have to take out student loans because we gave too much of our money away this past month, bring it on.

with that said, here’s our update for april:

tuition for 2011-2012 school year: $9,654.00
savings at the end of april: $1,300.00
difference: $8,354.00
percentage saved: 13.46%
percentage left to save: 86.54%

i was not expecting to really put any extra in the bank, so i’m encouraged!

march update [tuition savings]

march was an interesting month. we found out that we didn’t receive any financial aid for bryan’s last year of school. so, we had a long talk, went over some things in our budget and buckled down. more importantly though, god and i had a really awesome heart to heart.

can i just say that all that stuff in the bible is actually true?! he is the god of all comfort and the great provider who loves us so much. i haven’t forgotten that his true and perfect act of love is all i need, and yet he continues to provide more!

god is also the greatest, most gentle and patient teacher. he has been teaching me a bunch about his generosity and being open-handed with our money.

the morning before we received our financial aid notification, i was sitting in church, listening to the message and god asked me to give a certain amount to the summer missions trips. i said okay and talked to bryan about it as soon as i got home. he agreed to this and then we found out that we didn’t get any financial aid. isn’t god’s timing funny? we wrote the checks, even though it was hard. that whole week, god tested our generosity. he kept reminding me of the countless times we’ve benefited from the generosity of others [you know who you are!], and we both felt overwhelmingly that we should open our hearts and bank account to those in need.

it has been such a blessing to follow god’s leadership in this area. especially because i have had a particularly tight grip on our finances, especially since we decided to move to iowa city. but when has god ever not provided for his children?

i’ve been insanely encouraged by all of you i’ve talked to, or who commented on my last blog, or sent me emails of encouragement. thank you, thank you, thank you!

sorry for the long, heart-exposing blog, but it happens every once in a while!

here’s our financial update for march:

tuition for 2011-2012 school year: $9,654.00
savings at the end of march: $1,100.00
difference: $8,554.00
percentage saved: 11.39%
percentage left to save: 88.61%

we have progress! can’t wait to see what God does!

oh money

well, after being anxious for weeks, we finally found out if we are to receive any financial aid for this upcoming school year. we didn’t. nothing at all! i was kind-of surprised. i was so counting on it. even just a little would help. and we made a whole ten thousand dollars less than the year before and we received almost a full scholarship then.

i suppose i sound completely selfish and ungrateful right now. after all, we’ve been able to get bryan through three years of school without any loans. that’s not something a lot of people can say. but, all the same, here i am complaining about how we didn’t get any free money. boo hoo.

well, i’m only human, i guess.

so, for those of you who have been reading a while, and know that our main financial goal right now is to pay cash for college, i’ll tell you what we’re thinking. we have a little over $1,000 saved up just set aside for tuition. all of bryan’s income over the summer will also go straight into the tuition fund. thankfully, we think that should cover almost all of the first semester of tuition. we’re not sure what we’ll do for the rest. i might start giving plasma alongside bryan to earn some extra money, maybe i’ll actually sell some crafts for profit too. bryan may get a part-time job while still in school too, but i would like to avoid that if at all possible.

although it’s even less desirable, we may have to take out a loan for the second semester, but we would definitely get a loan that doesn’t accumulate any interest for six months after graduation. they still have those right? is it obvious i know nothing about student loans? we’d almost surely be able to pay it all off within 6 months, but it would set us back a bit, especially as we’ll likely need another car when bryan graduates. i don’t even want to think about coming up that money as well. arg.

if you have any encouragement for me, i’d be so thankful for it. sorry for the not so humorous post, perhaps i’ll have a sense of humor about finances soon, but i tend to take it all very seriously right now.

[photo credit]

alsberries

enjoying the sweet life

Money Management