Leap of Faith

In today's world people like you and I are trying to figure out ways to cut our expenses, save money at the grocery store, etc.  Sometimes though, as frugal as we are we need to stop and take a good hard look at our expenses and see where everything shakes out.

I have to admit that in the past year my two credit cards have been used.  Like the majority of people out there, I had balances on two cards.  The one card I use strictly for my military conferences that I attend or when I front the money for military things that I later get reimbursed for.  That is the American Express card.  Currently the balance is $1,100.00

I also had a Mastercard which had a balance of $3,300.00 + $60.00 in pending charges.  That was my evil charge card.  Unfortunately I had gotten myself into a bad habit of not sticking to my budget.  Yep, I fell off the horse.  We all do it so I'm not beating myself up over it, but I have to admit that the recent rise and fall of the stock market made me take a look at things again.

I had $2,752.00 in my savings account and had just receive partial reimbursement of $653.00 and it was payday as well.  I have struggled with paying off the Mastercard for a long time.  Just really never sunk my heart into it I guess.  And I have to admit the big fear I had was what if I wipe out my savings to pay off the card and something happens like the car breaks down or something.  Every one's response was always the same, well at least you'll have your card to fall back on.  I hated hearing that, but in reality that is the truth.  The thing that kept staying in the back of my mind was that I was paying more in interest each month on the Mastercard than I was earning on my savings account so I was definitely in a no-win situation with the Mastercard.

Normally I would have taken the $653.00 and deposited it into my checking account and then immediately gone on line and made a $653.00 payment to the American Express.  For some reason I have always been very good about paying that card when I received the reimbursements.  Can't give you a single reason why other than I was very disciplined about that card. 

I prayed a little about it and decided to take a Leap of Faith.  I deposited the $653.00 check and transferred $2,700 over into my  checking account and paid $3,300. on the Mastercard.  The only balance left is the $60.00 pending charges. I tried to pay the full amount, but for whatever reason the online system wouldn't let me pay more.  Don't understand it but paid what it would let me. 

Wow.  I couldn't believe I did it.  Pretty scary for me not having anything in savings.  But you know what, I'm not alone.  A lot of people don't have savings accounts or if they do, they are continually taking money out of them.  But we'll talk about the savings account again later.

Now before you say well you just robbed Peter to pay Paul.  Hold on a minute.  Remember, I still have $1,100 on the American Express.  I have a $600.00+ reimbursement coming at the end of the month that goes towards that card which will leave me roughly $500.00 still owed on it.  I went to put some earrings on that my husband bought for me that I have the hardest time in the world putting on.  They are beautiful gold loops that have the most horrendous fasteners I have ever seen.  I can't get the darn things on by myself and I can't stand that so I decided to get rid of them.  Don't get me wrong I decided with the price of gold being what it is right now that I would take them to the company my husband works for (Quick Cash Pawn & Guns) and see if I could get anything for them.  This made me think about a ring I also had that I never wear which was also gold.  So I took the items there and walked out $220.00 richer. 

Of course my brain was ticking away and forming another plan.  Like I said, I have approximately $600.00 reimbursement coming at the end of the month and I've just added another $220.00 to it so now I have $820.00 to put towards the American Express at the end of the month  I get paid bi-monthly and the my second check only have the electric bill come out of it so you see where I am going with this.  With my reimbursement check, the money I made from the two pieces of jewelry and a little bit from my check at the end of the month I will be paying off the American Express. 

Extremely long story short, with a leap of faith, I will have paid off over $4,400 worth of bills in one month which leaves me with only two bills a month.  My husband and I split the bills.  I pay the house note and the electric bill and he pays the remainder of the bills.  We sat down one day and decided that we would each have our own checking accounts and we separated the bills equally.  Now the savings account has been mine so that money I used to pay off the Mastercard was all mine.  Didn't want you thinking I had used the hubby's money for my leap of faith. 

I know the end of the month isn't here yet and anything can happen but I have a plan and I'm very excited about it.  I will go into the month of September knowing that the only bills I have to pay each month are the house note and the electric bill.  Woooo Hoooooo!  Can I get a Hell Yeah!  I have never gotten my finances to this point before in my life and let me tell you it's one heck of a feeling. 

I still have the $52.00 in my savings and I will begin to build that back up immediately in case of emergencies.  But now, I have a huge comfort zone and will feasibly be able to build it back up rather quickly and will be pretty much debt free.  I already have $100 a month go into my savings but now that I don't have the credit cards to worry about anymore I should be able to put an additional $400 savings away each month so by the end of the year I should have around $2,000 back into savings. 

Sometimes you just have to sit down and weigh things out and take the leap of faith.  Yes it is scary knowing that I only have $52.00 in savings right now but it's a much more powerful positive feeling knowing that I won't be worrying about the credit cards anymore.  With people losing jobs left and right and the economy being what it is, I constantly worried about either my husband or myself losing our jobs.  Neither one of us would have been able to pay all of the bills including my credit cards.  Now that worry isn't there.  Now I can breathe easier and all it took was a leap of faith!

 

This post is part of the Becentsable Gathering Compensated Affiliate