Choices, Choices, Choices...

It's all about choices! Every one of us makes choices every day—whether or not we realize it—as to what is important to us, how we want to live, and where our money will go. Jake and I make very careful choices based on the type of future we want to have. Sure we could live it up like most Americans today, but in 30 years those people are going to be just as broke as they are now while Jake and I, hopefully, will be living peacefully in financial security.

But this type of living does not mean that we are poor. Some people may think that, but we're certainly not. We could very well go out to eat several times a week and spend money on ridiculous cable TV packages and brand name clothes, but we choose not to.

This type of lifestyle—which we jokingly call "penny pinching"—is a choice that we feel God is calling us to make. We believe it's the right choice, not just for the hear and now, but for our future family. It's a lifestyle that's not for everyone—although it probably should be ;-)—because it takes a lot of hard work and discipline. To make it succeed, you really need to know what you want out of life and you need to be willing to do whatever it takes to get there.

Do we stray sometimes? Sure. Is it hard to keep on track? Yup! But here are some ways we stay motivated:

1. It's my dream to be a stay-at-home mom. I believe I told this to my hubby very early on, before we were even officially "dating." I needed him to know how important it is for me to be at home with our kids, and that I don't want to have other people raising them, such as babysitters, daycares, schools, etc. Much to my delight, this is one of the first things we agreed on as we pursued a relationship with the end goal of marriage in mind.


2. We want to adopt. This was another thing we agreed on early in our relationship. We both have a heart for adoption and believe God has called us to care for orphans.


3. We want to be "hilarious givers"—as our pastor would say—able to spontaneously, without reluctance, give to those in need. We want to give back the blessing of abundance that God is giving to us.

None of these three goals would ever be realistically possible as long as we have debt. In order for me to stay home with our children I'll need to substantially cut back my hours at work and probably quit my job, which means losing half our income, and that's a pretty big deal. Adoption costs are astronomical, especially if you want to do so internationally, which is our hope. And, finally, we can't be generous, spontaneous givers if we don't have any extra to give.

So, for now, does that mean we don't go out to eat very often or see every movie we want in the theater? Yes, but we are having a blast doing this, and anytime we start to get down or think this isn't going to work God does exceedingly, abundantly, above all that we could ask or think, which encourages our hearts to keep on our crazy path to financial freedom.

Keep pinchin' :-)