San Antonio

We had the pleasure of traveling to San Antonio for Travis's dad's retirement from the air force adter 30 years of service. It was really neat to observe the ceremony, to see San Antonio and of course to spend time with family. One of the highlights beside all of this and certainly Zion's favorite part was meeting our nephew and Zion's cousin Calvin for the first time.
We got to visit the Alamo which was very exciting. And Zion got a great view!
At the riverwalk after having a great dinner, Bethany and Erin, Aunt Susan and Travs mom.

Thanks Uncle Shawn and Aunt Jill for the super cute new bathing suit.
Downtown.
The crew.

Meeting Calvin for the first time. Zion loved him and wanted to be around him the whole time we were there. She is still asking for him in fact.
A content Calvin with his mom and Dad.
During the ceremony. What a great heritage of service to our country and to God he models and passes down to all of us.

Holding her favorite buddy!

Zions Many Artistic Talents

Lip Gloss
Pen
Spaghetti

More fun in the Burgh

Zion got to see her pal Landon. They are growing up so quick! We took them for a walk on the trail and they had fun sitting together (-:
On the way home in the airport Zion insisted on standing up on her own on the train and holding on. She must be strong because it was jerky and she did not even bobble.
Our chunky monkey eating Ben and Jerry's in the Atlanta airport.

A Wedding

Travis and I both agree that we loved Tim and Rachel's Wedding. The setting was beautiful in an old country church established in the 1700's. They looked terrific. And the wedding and reception were simple but creative and so very genuine. We had a blast and Travis and I even attempted to learn swing dancing at the reception which was hilarious. The food was from a vegetraian restaurant and was by far the best wedding food I have ever had. There was like 12 different types of salads and I ate lentils for the first time since childhood. If it made me like lentils you know it was good because I think they were my most hated food. They had a lentil salad with a balsamic reduction. Its making me hungry just thinking about it. We are just so excited for them as it is so evident that they are seeking to live out God' will for their lives and to be good stewards of everything that he has given them. Their wedding and their ideas and ideals have been an encouragement to us. You can see some better pictures of them on our families blog. Congratualtions Tim and Rachel we love you!

Shaping Up Our Finances

We have been working hard the past couple of months to get our finances into better shape. Above is our latest free stuff from CVS. That is a lot of free diapers and toilet paper. Travis was working hard doing our budget but I really was not in tune with our financial situation and I was just doing my own thing. Also, we had discussed doing some different things to save money but never seemed to have time to implement them. We finally decided that we really needed to do better. Our small group did a study on what the Bible has to say about finances and we had a financial teacher from Crown Financial ministries that came and spoke at our church and both of these things encouraged us and gave us ideas to develop our financial plan and goals. I think the best part of it was that we sat together as a part of the study we did and planned out all of our goals together relating to our short term and long term financial goals. From how we want to give our money, things we want to buy in the future, things we need to save for.



Based on our goals we then looked at our spending to see what we could do to better work towards our goals. As a result of this we sold my car. Although it was sad to see it go honestly even though I loved the car I have not missed it much. Sharing a car has been relatively easy because I think we knew it was the best thing to do and Travis works so close to our home. By selling the car we now only have one car payment and this car will be paid off soon, we save on insurance, we probably drive less which saves gas, and we made a good amount of money on the sale of the car which we were able to pay off a credit card with. We also used other money that we received from our tax refund and from scraping pennies that we were able to pay off the second credit card. We had not had credit card debt until I was out of work when Zion was born because I was out of work longer than we anticipated and have a baby is more expensive than we realized.



We were extremely frustrated when looking at our financial situation and discouraged but now seeing what we have been able to do in two short months leaves us very encouraged. Not only did we pay off two credit cards but we also have a nice emergency fund in savings. Our next project is to pay off the last credit card. If all goes as planned this and our remaining car will be paid off by the end of the year.



We are working hard to save money by:



1. Planning ahead in our budget for all expenses to prevent surprises and accruing money for costs such as car repairs.

2. Minimizing fluctuating budget categories such as groceries by planning shopping trips, buying what we need, eating less meat, using coupons, and shopping at stores where we can get the best deals that are still close by.

3. Going out less. We have worked hard to eat out less and drive less. We try to think about it anytime we go somewhere and combine errands and trips to reduce our spending on gas.

4. We have investigated our other bills such as phone, Internet etc...to see how we can reduce them.

5. We are making more things from scratch including food, home items,and hey even clothes for Zion.

6. We look out for free things to do to have fun without spending money. Like did you know for this whole month Dunkin Donuts is giving away free iced coffee on Thursdays in Florida. When Travis was studying for his test earlier this month we did not have money for him to get Starbucks but he got free iced coffee at Dunkin donuts, a free smoothie at smoothie king next to his work, free taco bell, free food at McDonald's so he was able to have some study fuel with out the crazy Starbucks cost.

7. Giving more. It may sound like this is the opposite of saving. But I think being focused on having money to give has made us better at not spending. Before we were just cutting in close every month and we often had little money left over to give. Now we are working hard to give first and then work with what we have left. For the past two months we have given money to our church at the very beginning of the month. We also started supporting a Compassion child in the Philippines. This support goes to pay for school and food for him and he is too cute. Zion prays for him in her prayer every night with Travis.



Not only are we working hard at saving money and paying everything off but we have actually been having fun with it too to our surprise. The following resources have helped us save money and get our finances in shape.



http://www.mvelopes.com/

(this is what we use for our budget and we love it. It is online and has an electronic envelope system so it is easy to accrue money for your budget categories and it tracks every penny but is easy and quick to use. And you can even access it from your phone when you are at the store to see how much money you have in say your grocery envelope. We used to use a cash envelope system when we first got married but its hard to pay cash for your gas with a baby in the car and we do not have to go to the bank as much.)

http://www.crown.org/

This is where our small group study was from and the have some great free resources and tools and other books.

http://www.daveramsey.com/

http://www.moneysavingmom.com/

http://www.thecentsiblesawyer.com/



Books:

Financial Peace, Dave Ramsey

The Two Income Trap, Elizabeth Warren

The Hidden Art of Homemaking, Edith Schaeffer