Honey I Love You... Debt I Hate You!

So  today is Valentines day and my hubby and I have generally sat around and made goggly eyes at one another while making a have baked valentine's day celebration plan that required us to sit in the house and avoid the mad rush of celebrators... Today is no different. Well, there is one difference we have added a bouncing bundle of joy to our valentines day home celebration so now we are making goggly eyes at him too.

In the midst of celebrating valentines our traditional way Hubby and I had a conversation about our debt. It went a little something like this... "Honey I love you" (pulled up our budget on the computer), "Debt I HATE you". Yea that pretty much sums up the beginning conversation. But then I began thinking, If I truly love myself, my husband and my son then why do I continue to allow us to live with something we hate so much. I went back to my husband and we began to have a real conversation about getting out of debt. Debt (darn you Student loans) has crippled us for years. And then we threw a baby in the mix so our budget consists of daycare, diapers, student loans, and credit cards, and that is a recipe for a mental break down.

So this valentines day along with our goggly eyes, and home body celebration we also made a pact to show ourselves, and our son how much we really love each other by getting out of debt. Getting out of debt to us is like saying I believe in your future enough not to spend your future on debt payments. So these are the four steps we are starting today... Maybe you can join us.

1. Cut down fast food- So we have been eating a lot of our money. We will be cutting our fast food/ restaurant dinning to once per week. This may sound like a lot to you but let's just say McDonalds was like our cafeteria.
2. Give every dollar a destination- We would get so excited when we had extra money after our bills were paid, our allowance was dispersed, our groceries were purchased, and baby stuff was bought. Because we were so excited we would spend that money on... well actually we don't know what we spent it on, and there lies the problem. We are going to sit and talk about where that extra money can go in order to make the biggest impact on our future. 
3. Have a 1,000 dollar emergency fund- We got the 1,000 from Dave Ramsey. But let's face it, life happens and if we 0 out every month to pay debt and live if a tire needs to be replaced we would be in BIG trouble.
4. Continue to tithe- I look around and I see people in financial stress all around me. Steve and I have been there. But we tithed our way threw. I remember when Steve had a minimum wage paying job, I was teaching and Steve says "Babe I want to tithe based on the salary I desire". My response was... well let's just say it lacked support. But we did it and he has surpassed that salary. So I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we will continue to tithe and believe God that we will be DEBT FREE!

So this is my valentines day declaration to my family "I love you, and I hate debt so I promise that I wont force you all to live with it any more!"

Cry it out...

So for the past  9 months of my sons life I was against every piece of advice that said to allow your baby to cry it out. I would endure sleepless nights in order to ensure that my baby did not suffer through crying for an extended period of time. I would do every parenting no-no to help my son drift calmly off to sleep. I nursed him to sleep, I bottle fed him to sleep. When he woke up I would nurse him, bottle feed him, rock him, or even put him in our bed (gasp) to fall asleep. I was determined that I would make this sacrafice because it was important to me... Until yesterday!

For the past two nights Micah has been waking up at 2:30am. I offer him a bottle and he will not take it. I rock him and he stays awake. The only way he drifts back to sleep is if I allow him to sleep in our bed. And when he does go to sleep in our bed he tosses and turns more than in his crib. I know he tosses and turns because I have waken up to a baby foot in my mouth. So when I wake him up he is still tired and he has been exhausted at daycare.

So last night I decided to face the music and put my mommy draws on. I was going to have to let him cry it out for his own good. So true to form at 2:30am my little man woke up and began to cry and I left the room (he still sleeps in our room... I know,I know I hear the mommy moans) because I knew if I stayed in there I would sabatoge the cry it out method.

The excruciating pain of hearing my baby cry and not running to him lasted for about 7 minutes and then he was back asleep. WHAT!!!! That was it. I was foregoing hours and hours of sleep for 7 minutes of tears. I will continue to try this and see if it helps my little man get more sleep. I hope to be writing a post in a month or so about the amazing  sleep we are getting!