This is Dad's attempt to write about the adventures we have as a homeschool family striving to walk in obedience to Christ Jesus. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/jonesfarm/ en-us Homeschool Blogger Mon, 19 May 2008 07:15:00 -0500 Mon, 19 May 2008 07:15:00 -0500 Tonight we met with our old Dave Ramsey Financial Peace group to celebrate Richey's family being debt-free except the house.  Thank you Lord for enabling them to do this.  They have an incredible story about this - and will share on the Dave Ramsey show soon.  Richey's job of 18 years is getting phased out, and he has been going to school and working as a nursing intern for the past year...and his wife has picked up extra dental jobs.  They have been gazzelle intense in paying off their debt so they can make this career transition.  Anyhow all 3 couples made a pact during our first FPU class that once our equity lines were paid off - we would celebrate with dinner.  An extra bonus was that our dear friends the Gwyn's are expecting a child next month (yet another incredible answered prayer).  So we enjoyed a great time of fellowship and praising God....even though Richey got called out at the last minute and could not celebrate with us! :-) Well the Cadillac car sale knocked off another 7 chains - so we are now left with 4 chains!!!   We hope to transition from a slavery to debt poster to a nest egg poster (fully funded emergency fund) come November. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/jonesfarm/534393/ Mon, 19 May 2008 07:15:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/jonesfarm/534393/ Praise Him - the car has sold.  We had the car for sale on AutoTrader since February, and I decided to put it on Craig's List.  Bingo - I got two good inquiries and finally a gentleman bought it today.  Soon we will be cutting off some major chains! http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/jonesfarm/534382/ Tue, 13 May 2008 06:52:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/jonesfarm/534382/ Well the Cadillac ElDorado ETC (the car her dad gave us) had some issues.  First we discovered that the Cadillac is expensive to maintain - or so it seems to be more than the typical GM/Ford product.  Shannon accidently hit the sunroof switch coming home with Erin...and low and behold the sunroof was stuck open.  It would not close.  Getting some preliminary cost estimates kind of scared us.  So we parked it. In addition the Lord has spoken to us regarding our children and driving.  Why do our children need to drive at age 15 1/2...or 16...or even 17?  Would I allow them to drive alone - to be unprotected - and for what purpose....to help run errands for mommy and daddy?  I believe it could foster independence and develop more of an appetite for what the world has to offer.  Plus in our County we would have to partake in the driver education offered by the government school (no private schooling available).  I have already heard stories about what goes on in that class - and my answer is it is not worth it.  I will teach them some driving skills on the farm, and we will patiently wait until they are 18 and do not have to take the driver's ed class. Why all the hurry? Anyhow we have the Cadillac and the trash truck.  The trash truck only sits 2 people....the Cadillac can sit 5.  The trash truck (Lord willing) will be less expensive to maintain.  We took the Cadillac to the dealership - and they managed to close the sunroof by cleaning the switch.  They could not guarentee how long this fix would last.  The recommended a new switch - and the bill would be $800.  So we decided that we could live with the Dave Ramsey beater - and we are going to try to sell the Cadillac again.   http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/jonesfarm/534381/ Sat, 19 Jan 2008 06:39:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/jonesfarm/534381/ My father-n-law blessed our family by donating his old car to our family....along with the trash truck.  We only had our family vehicle -2001 Yukon XL.  I had cleanup and advertised his car earlier this year and tried to sell it.  In fact we had a buyer who came but he was 6'4" tall - and his head touched the roof...so he couldn't buy it.  At the time we needed another vehicle for me to get to work from time to time - or at least to the vanpool pick-up location.  Plus we were thinking that a reliable car in good condition would serve us as our older children became of 'driving' age.  Her dad decided to give us his car if we took responsibility for the farm trash truck (a real Dave Ramsey beater).  Yes the insurance and taxes for 2 vehicles put a damper on our budget, but what a blessing. So now we own 3 vehicles. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/jonesfarm/534368/ Wed, 19 Sep 2007 06:32:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/jonesfarm/534368/ Here is the Debt Poster now....we recieved our Tax economic stimulus package, and only with our normal 2 week payment, we were able to cut off 3 chains last night!  Praise the Lord!  We wish these monies could have gone somewhere else, but when you are slave to the lender that is what happens.  I am sorry our family can't stimulate the economy any further at this time.  We did our share when we were building our house and finishing it. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/jonesfarm/534363/ Fri, 16 May 2008 06:19:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/jonesfarm/534363/ Well here is the debt poster that my children made a few weeks ago.  This is in our family room. 14 links show our current home equity line balance.   Lord willing this poster will be replaced by a bird's nest poster - where each egg represents $1,000 in our emergency fund (Baby Step 3).  Our goal is to have $12,000 or a dozen eggs. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/jonesfarm/532800/ Sat, 10 May 2008 14:53:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/jonesfarm/532800/ So how was it watching the DVDs again?  Not bad!  Dave is a great teacher and he is passionate about helping people get out of debt and having financial peace.  "You live like no-one else so you can live like no-one else."  It helped to keep our motivation and further cement what we are doing.  Since last year I try to listed to Dave on the radio and/or pick up his podcast.  Hearing stories (both good and bad) really get you excited about what the Lord has started.  I do praise Him for casting this vision for our family.  We are going to change our family legacy.  My friend Richey gave us the idea of putting up a debt poster as a daily reminder of how much you owe.  He had his children make scary debt monsters and then made $1,000 chain links.  Each time they paid $1,000, they would cut the links....so month by month the family could 'see' the debt getting smaller. We are still praying for the sale of our car.  It has been up for sale for 2 months now. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/jonesfarm/532795/ Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:46:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/jonesfarm/532795/ Well we are doing the Financial Peace class again!  Some families in our homeschool support group heard that we went through it and mentioned that they wished they had the opportunity.  Being blessed by the experience the first time, we decided to host the FPU class again.  It gave us an opportunity to meet other families and have some fellowhip in Christ. So far 2 other families have signed up and I hope it will be a blessing for all. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/jonesfarm/532792/ Tue, 15 Jan 2008 14:43:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/jonesfarm/532792/ In February 2007 we started the 13 week FPU course with 2 other families.  It took more than 13 weeks due to travel/sickness etc. - but we finished up in June/July.  What a blessing!!  The teaching and enouragement we received from Dave himself and the sharing/accountability with our friends is something we will never forget.  Shannon and I came to an understanding of finances, the Baby Steps and what we had to do to achieve our vision of being debt free and helping others. The first hard piece was developing a written budget (and sticking to it) and going on a cash basis.  After weeping about what could have been - and realizing that it is not too late - we started to tackle our debt (Baby Step 2) after establishing our $1,000 emergency fund (Baby Step 1).  We paid off the credit card (no longer have any) and decided to hit our home equity line of credit, which was very large and could have been considered as part of "the house".  We had no wiggle room for anything - we were in bondage. Dave says to sell what you can, work extra jobs, anything to get ride of debt.  One can not make any headway if you are a slave to the lender (Proverbs 22:7).  Let's just say we made a very difficult decision and are walking by faith.  We are now methodically paying $500/month on the equity line, we finally have some traction.  We can't wait for the day to put that $500 into our fully funded emergency fund (3-6 months expenses, Baby Step 3).   http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/jonesfarm/532787/ Sun, 15 Jul 2007 13:18:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/jonesfarm/532787/ My 4 year old son came up to me the other day and said Woody (his Toy Story doll) was being bad and needed a spanking.  So I went along and told him he needed to pray with Woody so he would understand why and address the sin issue at hand.  So I led him in prayer and John-Michael repeated after me and in a gentle yet firm manner showed Woody 'the rod'.  Yesterday we were all in the family room and John-Michael came up to my bride and said he was going to spank Woody.  I interupted him to see if he remembered....and reminded him that he needed to pray before doing so and not spank out of anger.  John-Michael gently told Woody he was going to spank him and then said "May God have mercy on your soul." Whack.  Now where he got this statement from I don't know, but Erin thinks it came from the Pixar movie Cars. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/jonesfarm/530955/ Mon, 12 May 2008 11:52:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/jonesfarm/530955/