Just last month in July 2016, we were planning on buckling down with a really barebones budget, so that we could be a bit “extreme” with paying down our debt, and hopefully get my student loan paid off by the end of the year. If we felt like continuing, we could get my husband’s student loan paid off by the end of the next year. However, God has different plans for us.
On the last Thursday of the month, one day before his monthly payday, I got a phone call from Joe asking if I could come pick him up because he just got fired. “You got fired?” I asked, trying to figure out if I heard him correctly. “Yes.” So I went to pick him up.
My thoughts were something along the lines of, “I guess now we know what we should be doing.” You see, this past year has been something of a struggle for us, trying to figure out what we should be doing in regards to Joe’s job. We’ve been wanting to start a blog for a while now, but it was hard to find time in between work, family, and the Youtube channel Joe started with his friend. We had contemplated having him come home full time, but were unsure that would be a wise decision, as it would take away a stable income, and there is no guarantee of getting an income right away from a start-up blog. I had even quipped something like, “I kinda wish you would just get fired, then we’d know that we should try blogging.” So when he called me and said he was fired, it just made sense that now we had the opportunity to start up this blog, and this was the direction God had been leading us.
At the time we didn’t think we had any money saved up. In the first few days of August, we realized we do have a little bit in a retirement account we can take out and use, but it will only last us until the end of the year, if we use our barebones budget and don’t have any unexpected expenses. So we’ve thought of a couple ways to hopefully make a bit more money until the blog gets up and going.
- We’re planning on having an estate sale. We’re going to open our house, and let people come buy what they’d like, best offer. We’ll keep what we need in a separated area, but the rest will be up for grabs. This is something we’ve also kinda wanted to do for a while, and now we have a reason to actually get around to doing it.
- There’s a consignment sale coming up that vendors can set up booths at. I’m thinking about making some items, and setting up a booth at the sale. If I don’t do it at this one, I’m definitely going to plan for the next one as these sales happen at least twice a year.
- Joe is a programmer, and has an established JavaScript blog that he’s neglected for a while. He plans to start writing regularly for it again, along with writing guest posts for other programming blogs.
It seems like God has been trying to lead us in this direction, but we were too afraid to take the next step in faith, worried instead about having a stable income. However, he’s also been working in our hearts through this past year, and he has prepared us to face this unexpected job loss without fear. We know where we’re headed. We know that the journey may be rough, but we also know God is in this.
God is leading and we’re willing to follow. We can’t wait to see what He does next.
If this has left you curious about what to expect on this blog (and you’ve visited us early enough in our journey that it’s not entirely apparent by the present content), then check out our About page. We explain our vision for this blog and introduce ourselves a bit more. Thanks for visiting and God bless.