Life With The Stanfords

Town Hall For Hope Is Tonight!

Do not miss it. Click here to find the one nearest you. I'll post my thoughts post-event and I hope you'll share yours with me. Get up off the couch and go. Knowledge is power. Get some!

Financial Peace - What's that?

 

"Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare." --Isaiah 55:1-2

I was so surprised to see a Saturday Night Live skit last night extolling the virtues of not going into debt. Here's a link to that video:

http://www.danwho.net/mp/index.php?id=snl_dontbuystuff

What is so sad about that is that the concept is so foreign to this generation, this culture, that we have to have classes to teach us the most basic precepts of how to be financially prudent. We have absolutely no idea how to save, how to wait, how to plan. We want it all and we want it now. Even our largest corporations have the sickness. We all want to be bailed out - now!

Jade and I got sick of being in debt, of never knowing how much money we really had, and of never making progress financially. We knew we had more money than ever, but we still had nothing to show for it. We agreed to take Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University class online. Our cost was $163.00. In our opinion, it has already paid for itself.

We have learned things from this class that no one has ever told us before. Revolutionary things!

• Do you realize how SUPER bad it is to have a car payment? I don't think you do. This lesson alone is worth the cost of the class.

• Did you know that you can re-do your budget every month? That may seem really obvious to most of you, but I never thought that way. I always thought I had to set an amount in stone for everything and never stray from it. Well, that is a great recipe for failure. I can't tell you how many budgets have crashed and burned in the past. I will never look at budgets the same way again.

• How many of you originally went into debt in college because you got a credit card to "build credit"? I'm raising my hand. Dave really opened my eyes about credit scores. I will no longer be a slave to my credit score. Hurrah! That's sticking it to The Man. Yeeeaah!

• Are any of you dealing with creditors or collection agencies? Thankfully, Jade and I are not. But if you are in the midst of financial disaster, PLEASE take this class. Dave Ramsey will help you immensely. You will learn so much about collection tactics and ways to protect yourself from illegal harassment.

Jade and I have been taking this class for one month now. I cannot fully express how much freedom and peace I have in my heart now. My husband and I are now on the same page about our finances. We review them together. We have emergency savings now. We have a plan to pay off our debt as quickly as possible. Lastly, we have planned for expenses that we know are looming ahead (school, braces, camp, vacation, Christmas!).

I wanted so much to give away a class on my blog, but Jade says we have to be "gazelle intense" right now. Dang! I hate it when he's right.

Please email me if you have any questions about this class. I will be happy to talk to you about it (And no, I do not make commission from Dave Ramsey!). Here's the link to his website:

http://www.daveramsey.com

And here are some of the things you'll learn:

Go get yourself some peace!

Can you read the signs?

My sister hates text as a design choice. She said she feels compelled to read the text every time she passes it (She is a little weird, which makes her just right for our family). I, however, love words. When I think about it, I'm surprised I don't have signs posted all over my house.

I found a few signs at the train workshop on our vacation that would be just right for our home:

 

The above sign is particularly timely since my three-year old son answers every request with, "I caaaan't!" I'm going to put the following sign over the television in our den (Cable television is evil. I always knew it.):

 

Third, in view of the number of accidents we have had in our home and on vacation recently (Blythe gashed her leg open in the mountains), I am going to post this one:

 

Now here's where my sign discussion takes a serious turn. After getting back on the train to go back to the station, my daughter pointed to this sign and asked, "What's that for?"

 

I hadn't even noticed it before. By instinct, I looked for the sign I knew would be at the other end of the car:

 

My heart sank when I had to explain to my daughter that black people used to have to sit at the back of the train, the back of the bus, the back of the restaurant and use separate bathrooms and separate water fountains, because...because...why?

I don't even know how all of it got started. Somewhere along the way, after slavery was abolished, society came up with another way to enslave black people and make them feel less than.

When we got home, I called my Dad to ask him about segregation. He grew up in Mississippi in the 40's and 50's, and I thought maybe he could shed a little light on this very dark part of our history.

Me: Dad, did you ever feel like something was wrong with segregation or was it just part of the culture?

Dad: You know, Jenn, I guess it might have crossed my mind that it wasn't fair or that it was bad, but that's just how it was, I guess. It was accepted.

Pause for consideration. How could my Dad, who is really smart and loves Jesus, be part of all that? It's so obvious to us today that this was all SO wrong!

I started thinking, did all the Germans think segregating and then killing Jews was a good idea?

 

Then I wondered what signs are going unnoticed right now? Are there things we'll look back on and say, "How in the world did we miss it?" Like this, maybe:

When government begins to punish people, not only for their crimes, but for what they were thinking when they did the crime, we have a problem. For example, if a man kills a homosexual person, the crime is murder. Murder is a hate crime every time, right? And this man will be punished for the crime. Do we also punish him because he doesn't like homosexual people? Follow that to it's end and you get very scary government control and punishment of people or groups who are not "tolerant".

Open your mouth. Speak truth. Do the right thing. Do the hard things. Make a difference in your society. Do not ever sit idly by and watch someone's freedoms be taken away--including yours. The signs are everywhere. Read them!

Breast Cancer Awareness Month...

I know October is almost over, but I wanted to share this great display I saw when I was in Opelousas, Louisiana, a couple of weeks ago. St. Landry Homecare is doing their part to raise awareness for breast cancer research. Is this cute or what?

My mother, Rosemary, died of breast cancer when I was 18. It's still the worst thing that has ever happened to me. She was my best friend in all the world. She gave me Jesus, she gave me herself and she gave me the world. There is not her equal anywhere. 

I guess it may sound strange, but I have never participated in "breast cancer awareness activities". I admire the work that all of those organizations do and the passion with which they do it. All I can say is that people grieve and memorialize differently. I don't feel like making my mama the poster child for breast cancer awareness. That's all.

Here's the other thing. I've never had a mammogram. I can hear the gasps ringing out all over the blogosphere. It just seems like I've always been having babies. Also, there might be a slight denial problem in play here. Or fear or something. I will be making an appointment to go get smashed, me and my fears. I'm acutely aware of breast cancer even without the campaigns. OK? OK.

More hurricane news...

My friend Cindy was kind enough to send me pictures of the damage she got from Hurricane Gustav. Not pretty. They lost their barn and have a huge task ahead of them cleaning up all the other trees that fell on their property.

   

There was a good bit of grim news at church this morning. At least two members of our church have trees in their homes. One picture was just devastating. The house was literally split in two by a large tree. The miracle is that the couple had just been sitting in that room minutes before the tree fell. It is surreal to drive around and see the damage all around me. It's really hard to get my head around the fact that a tree is in a house...a lot of houses! The yard next to us has a trailer that no longer has a roof or a back wall.

Hurricane Ike is headed our way now. The people here in south Louisiana are so weary. Everyone's just plain worn out from cleaning up and doing without. I'm still at my parents' house since we don't have electricity yet.

Do you have good parents? I think good parents are getting more rare. Mine are great. They've taken on my family of seven and another friend as well. And they're still being sweet even after a week! If you have the kind of parents that would take you in during a hurricane, thank them and then thank God for that sweet blessing.

Goodbye Gustav...and good riddance!

Well, it's all over but the cleanup. When last we blogged, I was merrily in denial about the fact that a major hurricane was headed my way. Shortly after I finished my blog Sunday, I started cramming for the hurricane (this is how I do everything in life - please let me know if there is a support group for this). I "crammed" everything of value into the back of the minivan and headed to my parents' house in the big city. Since we have many towering trees in our yard, we thought it best not to be there if one decided to fall.

I woke up a little before 6:00 a.m. on Monday morning. Why do I always wake up early when I don't have to? Aaaargh! There was already a breeze blowing but nothing major. Hurricanes are really weird. They turn in a circle with bands of weather on the outside. So you have breezes and then calm, bigger breezes and then calm, a huge rip-roaring, no-holds-barred, blow-your-socks off storm and then calm, and then the storm descends the same way in reverse order.

By 11:00 a.m. we were in the middle of the blow-your-socks off part. And here's where I have a confession to make: I love a good storm. I don't want anyone to lose their home or for anyone to get hurt, but something in me really wants to see her blow. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way, because when I watch the reporters on T.V., I can hear that excitement in their voices. Everybody wants to see what that storm's gonna do. Something twisted in me wants to see a Category 5 go down. It's a weird mix of terror and excitement.

OK, I'm done with that rabbit trail. Here are some interesting observations I've made post-hurricane: 1) It's fascinating to watch your fence get blown away (so that's what the neighbor's backyard looks like!). 2) The sound of 75-80 mph winds can really work your nerves after about an hour or so. 3) If you're the only one left with electricity, you'll have more food than you ever dreamed of consuming (at this moment, you can come to my parents' house and have fish, pork, beef, chicken, red beans and rice, jambalaya, any kind of vegetable, any kind of fruit, and the list goes on) because everyone you know will bring their food to your house "so it won't go bad". 4) Shredded, wet leaves are really hard to sweep up.

I'm sorry for this long post. I'm trying to make short paragraphs so it looks more interesting. Creative, no? By Tuesday, my sister and I were a little (OK, a LOT) stir crazy so we went riding around to see if we could get electrocuted or arrested. Here are some pictures:

Here's a picture of my sister driving under downed power lines with a full cup of hot coffee in her hand. To quote Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?, "It's a fool that looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart."

On a more serious note, I wonder at God's hand. My parents lost a fence, my sister lost a corner of her roof, and what did I lose? Nothing but electricity. Would God be as good if we had lost everything? Absolutely! There are so many around us who have lost much, though. I pray the Lord gives us many opportunities to love on people in the coming days. To whom much is given, much is required.