‘member that time?

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‘member that time i went to a movie?

‘member how after the movie i went to my car and realized i locked my keys inside? ‘member how i called bryan to bring me my spare key and while i was waiting i noticed that the car next to mine was running? ‘member how after i looked around for the owner and thought of ways i could let the owner of the car know i realized it was my car that was running? and that not only had i locked my keys in the car, but that i had left my car running during the entire movie.

good thing it wasn’t lotr or something.

[it’s ‘member that time monday at the van voorst‘s blog!]

old picture, good friend

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world, meet leah. she’s amazing. she’s an awesome wife, mom, friend, singer, worshiper, servant, designer, and sister in Christ.

i stumbled upon this picture from way back in 2008-leah, this really made me miss you!

falling apart, it’s a good thing

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i really love my husband. he’s the best.

he’s spending his last of three days in des moines recording an album right now, which means i get to see him tonight. yay!

my mom came over to my apartment sometime last year, looked around, looked at me and said: “you really do just fall apart when bryan’s gone, don’t you?”

i sheepishly replied, “i guess so.”

i haven’t changed after another year of marriage.

bryan was gone for just a couple days then, and it’s only been since tuesday morning he’s been gone this time, but i can’t seem to be responsible for much when he’s not here.

i don’t sleep in our bed when he’s gone. i feel sad when he’s not there to snuggle me to sleep. i have trouble remembering to eat too. it’s an accomplishment if i shower.

i should clean and do productive things while i have some time to myself, but i don’t.

i usually just watch chick flicks and buy myself some chocolate and fall asleep on the couch, tired and hungry and missing the love of my life.

i don’t why i felt you should know how much i fall apart when my best friend is gone, but now you know i’m human. : ) nothing to worry about either, it’s not as though i completely neglect the things i must accomplish. it’s just that, i really love living life with this man and it’s hard to have fun without him.

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i can’t wait for the rest of our lives!

the single budget

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calculating kids

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

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College

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?

‘member that time?

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‘member that time when i tripped up the stairs at my church, fell flat on my face, rolled over into an folded, upright table, knocked it over and was crushed, face-first, underneath of it?

‘member how my forehead just kind-of popped open and was gushing blood everywhere and i had to get 17 stitches on my face?

good thing i have bangs.

[it’s ‘member that time monday at the van voorst‘s blog!]

aaaaaand we have a graphic

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calculating kids

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!

dream job

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hopefully, the title of this post will convince you that my exciting news is not that i’m pregnant! seriously, readers, you’ve got to quit guessing that! : )

this is a different kind-of life change. the kind-of change where i go from working two great jobs to working one absolutely amazing job. the kind-of change where i go from working 50-60 hours a week to working a solid 40 with some extra time on the weekends. the kind-of change where i go from not having time to do simple things like grocery shop to having time to be a good wife again, not just a bacon-bringer.

this is the kind-of life change that will make it hard to quit my job and have a family someday.

[okay, it won’t be that hard, you all know by now how much i want a vanload of kids someday, but hey, i’m only 22!]

now, there are some skeptics [ahem, erik] out there that think i have a habit of getting a new job every couple of months…trust me, i’m sticking with this one as long as i can.

readers, i have been offered my dream job. and i have accepted.

i get the privilege of becoming veritas‘ new full-time coordinator!

can you tell i’m excited?! i wanted to scream, but thankfully, i have a mother for that. she did scream. by the way. both of my bosses know [i would not be posting this if they didn’t], and they were both so awesome to talk to. i’m so thankful for believing bosses!

God has been more than good to bryan and me this past year since we moved to iowa city. and He continues to dump on the goodness. thanks God!

may tuition update

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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. : )