Pray for us!

My husband and I have spent the last couple years trying to pull our finances together. When I was pregnant with my daughter, my husband was hospitalized with Diverticulitus for several days. I barely had the gas money to go see him, let alone the bridge toll to get to the hospital. It was definately a wake up call for me.

After that, I decided that I needed to take action and get our financial house in order. It was about that time that I found Dave Ramsey. What a blessing he has been to us. We paid off over $12,000 in credit card debt following his plan.

We were way over our heads, and we didn't realize how bad it had even gotten until we sat down and tallied up our expenses and debts. We realized we were spending money that we didn't even have and using credit cards to make ends meet. It was scary as the reality hit us. But putting ourselves in this debt, we were doing a great disservice to our kids...leading them to believe that we could afford things that we could not...setting them up to be in debt just like us. We had to turn things around. It has not been easy.

It has been a long, hard journey, and we still have debt to contend with...but we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. My husband and I both falter from time to time and have to refocus on our goal, but we usually get back on track pretty soon. Nobody is perfect. But this spring coming, a lot of our debt will be paid off and we feel that we will finally be on the right track.

The reason we need prayers at this time is we have heard of a couple people being laid off this week from my husband's work. This is really a great concern for us as we are just coming out of the debt, and don't have the money saved that we would need to survive a lay off. My husband works at a flooring company and in these times, people are not buying, building or remodeling cause money is tight everywhere. He has only worked at this job 6 years so he is low on the totem pole right now as his company hasn't hired much since he was hired.

We are in panic mode now, cutting down on a already overstressed budget trying to find spare dollars to get in a savings account so we have a backup plan. We are trying so hard to turn everything around.

First and foremost keep those that have been laid off in your prayers as they try to find their way in this dark economic time. And if you will keep us in your prayers, we would appreciate. We know things will get better, and that we will get through our challenges as we always have, but we are hoping to minimize the impact to our kids as much as possible. Hard times do make a family stronger, and this won't be the first rough patch we have hit. Thank you.

We know that there are so many people out there struggling with debt and layoffs too, and our hearts go out to you. :-(