The reckoning

Tomorrow B. and I are going to "our" financial guy, so as to best decide what parts of our burgeoning debt we'll be using B.'s retirement money to pay off.

Yep, you read that correctly...."retirement" money. You know, the money put away in that 401K, every paycheck, that is supposed to be saved until you actually retire? Well, not so for us, at least not with this money. I remember my own parents having to cash out their retirement money accounts...several times. I was too young to really understand all of the discussions, but I do remember the term "IRA account" mentioned. Little did I think that we would be in the same position. But, obviously, we have been living well beyond our means for a very, very long time, and now we are due for a reckoning. One thing that is going to make us say "ouch" repeatedly tomorrow, is the fact that while we are incredibly thankful to have this money to use, because we are cashing out a retirement account we will, of course, have to pay a penalty on it, plus taxes....so we aren't going to be able to erase all the debts which are causing us problems. This bites, but I am hoping, and praying, that God gives us the wisdom to use this money in a way that will improve our future and help us be good stewards of the financial blessings we do have!

We are not about to foreclose or anything, but honestly, we have credit card and medical bills which we are just having a lot of trouble paying. We are trying everything we can think of to cut living costs....we've turned down the heat, we're going to try and cut our cell phone bills somehow (I know we could just get rid of one/both of them, but as I'm driving a van with 118,000 miles on it, I sort of need the phone as a safety precaution!), we've cancelled the newspaper, we don't get any magazines. We almost never eat out anymore, which is actually fine with me; our children behave pretty well in restaurants, but K. doesn't really enjoy going out to eat, and S. doesn't need the extra calories. Sometimes eating out really isn't all that much fun, and honestly sometimes, the food isn't always that good!

Anyway, hopefully we will be able to solve some of our problems tomorrow, and get on top of these issues so that they don't happen ever again!!

J.