outstanding debt...

my primary credit card bill arrived Monday

I looked at it closely today

• Christmas
• regular expenses
• car insurance for 6 months
• house insurance for a year

all adds up to somewhere between "wow! and zing!" 

(that's a White Christmas reference for my kids)

Tuesday afternoon I read the fine print,

the boxes that explain what happens if you don't pay the balance in full:

• if I choose to pay $35 a month, the minimum amount due:
• it will take me 12 years to pay it off and I will end paying an extra $2,729.88
• if I pay $111 a month:
•  it will take me 3 years to pay it off, "saving me" $1,968 from the 12 year plan, but still cost me an extra $761.88

and that is only if I don't add to the balance due!

it is easy to see how quickly people can get in over their heads 

thankfully, I am able to budget and these aren't unexpected expenses

the bill is already scheduled to be paid in full

am I rich?

maybe not financially,

but I am in experience

I was married to a man who lived by a few simple rules: 

• make a realistic budget
• wants are not needs
• if you can't pay for it, don't buy it

live like no one else is living now:

not having what others had and not doing what others were doing?

it wasn't easy

it could be frustrating 

sometimes it was embarrassing

but now?

that discipline paid off 

I am enjoying financial freedom,

I am able to live like very few people can

Romans 13:7 was a verse Bill led us to live by

"Pay to all what is owed them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed."

And now I can live by Romans 13:8

"Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law."