Meagan left the following comment on my August Financial Update post:
I just wanted to tell you something. This morning I have about a week’s worth of dishes piled up. We don’t have a dishwasher and I hate it so much. Although this sounds weird, this post and others you’ve posted before have inspired me to get my life in order. We aren’t in the position to be debt free yet but you’ve inspired me to do the dishes. I can’t do the huge things yet, but I can do the little things, so that when we are in a position to do the big things, we will be ready to face the challenge. -Meagan
Meagan, your comment was right on the mark. You are so absolutely right!
My desire in sharing our financial goals and progress here is not to discourage others who are in different financial situations but hopefully to inspire everyone–no matter what your financial situation–to do something and start somewhere.
You’ll never get anywhere if you don’t stand up and take the first step. It’s easy to dream big dreams and make big plans, but the execution of them must happen one step at a time.
Back whenever my husband and I first had this crazy idea to pay cash for a home, we thought it truly would be impossible. We crunched a bunch of numbers, talked about all sorts of money-saving and income-earning ideas, and we both wondered if we’d lost our minds to set this goal and then share it with the world by publicly posting it on my blog back near the beginning of 2008.
But we did anyway, because we knew that, if we were going to pull this off, we’d need all of the accountability and cheerleading we could get. And then we dove in and took the first step: we set up a house savings account and we started setting aside every penny we could squeeze out of our small budget.
The first hundred and then the first thousand we saved were very rewarding. Little by little, things started picking up steam: our efforts and years of work on various income-earning things started to produce real fruit; we found new ways to cut our expenses even more; and we were the recipients of some unexpected financial gifts. The snowball just kept rolling downhill and picking up more and more snow–at a much greater rate of speed than we had originally ever envisioned.
Last October, God supernaturally opened up the door for us to be able to move back “home” (where cost of living is low) and start our own law firm. We used some money we’d set aside for extras, made the move, took a big leap of faith to start the law firm, and watched in amazement as God has blessed it far beyond our wildest expectations.
We kept plowing forward and our momentum grew. We continued to live on a modest budget (see a basic idea of that here) even as our income increased and we were constantly on the lookout for ways to earn extra income on the side (we’ll be talking more about these in the new Becoming a Work-At-Home Mom series).
One day last June, we woke up and realized we were half-way to our goal! Lord-willing, by the end of 2009, we are hoping to be at 85-95% of our goal–miles closer than we could have ever dreamed we’d be at this point.
How do you run a mile? One step at a time.
It is the same with financial goals or any goals, for that matter. They can only be accomplished one small step at a time.
It’s takes faithfulness in the little things to eventually see big progress. For us that’s been little things like: matching coupons with sales, planning a menu, purposing to live on a budget, reusing something instead of buying another new item, shopping around to get the best rates on insurance, making homemade pizza instead of ordering carryout, driving older vehicles, shopping at thrift stores, and learning to be content with what we have. All of these things might seem like a drop in the bucket when done individually, but, over time, each of those drops can start adding up.
Maybe you can’t save up to pay cash for a home, but you might be able to save $5 on your grocery bill this week and set that aside for savings. Start with the small things, be faithful in the little things, and stick with your goals–even when it feels like you’re going nowhere.
Start somewhere, do something, and don’t give up! Over time, as you become more experienced and adept at saving and earning money, you’ll likely start to see those little steps add up to a large amount of ground covered… and it will be worth every little sacrifice!
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Now for the numbers:
We began September at 65% of our house savings goal and we ended the month at 69%!
(If you’re new here, be sure to check out this post where I explain in detail why we’ve committed to this “crazy” idea to pay 100% down on a home. )
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How did you do in September? Whether
or not you posted financial goals for 2009, please take a moment to
post about your financial successes and/or failures in September and, if you’d like, the areas
you hope to improve in October. Then, come back here and leave your link
below. If you don’t have a blog or would rather share anonymously, feel
free to leave your update in a comment. Let’s all keep each other
accountable to be better stewards of
our resources!