My Top 10

1. Financial Freedom Seminar by Embassy Institute. My husband and I have taken this seminar as an annual thing to go through as a couple. I have learned a lot, again. We feel focused once again. We're going through it as we speak and share the experience with some friends of ours. We're planning on getting together weekly to discuss it.
2. Anger Resolution Seminar, by Embassy Institute. I went through this 20h seminar on my own, each night once the kids went down for the night. I discovered a lot and to put this in simple yet powerful words, it changed my life as I know it!
3. Uno card game. I enjoy playing Uno with my son. It's a great way to come together and have a laugh as well as talk.
4. Pinterest Food Recipes. I've stacked baking and cooking recipes to try out with my kiddos.
5. Menu Planning, deal hunting... we're going through a "dry spell" and I have learned to stretch the pennies.
6. Bear Grylls -survivor NetFlix episodes. Can't get enough.
7. Bored Shorts TV Kid Snippets via YouTube. Quite funny. I haven't laughed that hard, ever! Too funny!
8. My workout and diet regime HERE. Going good.
9. Letting go of OvuView App. Again. Old habits die hard.
10. Teaching STOTT Pilates again, after a few years break.

Out of Debt and From None to One

My husband and I vowed on a debt and loan free life after watching this seminar. We had experienced this miracle and knew that we were on the right track. We have three kids and live on a single income, so after making that decision, we knew that we had to save up cash for a car. With the income and savings plan that we had, it was obvious that we wouldn't be buying a car anytime soon. We were looking at 5 years down the line. I had already been strolling my kids around for 7 years and at times, I felt tempted to pick up that phone and "press #9", or apply for car financing. Thankfully we never did, and I am glad we didn't, because if we had done, we would have never got to experience the awesome-ness of God in this area. Keep reading!

We prayed about it, let God know our desires. We left it up to God to provide us a car if He saw fit. But one day, our neighbour had asked me whether we knew of anyone interested in buying a car, Dodge Grand Caravan 2003? I said that we didn't and that we are saving up for an Asia vacation to see my brother and his family. They told us what they would sell it for, if we were interested for $2,000. That was a great deal, if one would even have that kind of money saved up, but we didn't! I called my hubby right away and asked him whether this was another temptation or actually a gift from God. And if it was a gift from God, where would we find that money. It was a small enough amount, but still so large, for us. Are we going to miss out on such a chance like this, we wondered?? Because, we really didn't have the money. Borrowing was out of the question now, taking a loan was too... I was beginning to fret. Eventually we came to the conclusion that we had to trust God in this matter and if He saw fit, for us to have it, then we would have it. We had to have peace, that if I were to use strollers for the next 5 years, so be it.Not to mention that this car had been sitting in our neighbours driveway for the last year, what it really took was our hearts to be in the right condition to accept God's blessings.

Then soon after, it came to our knowledge that my husband had a bonus coming his way. This bonus was the exact amount of the car. HOWEVER, this was in June, and the bonus was to come the following August. We were surely going to miss this chance! We prayed ever harder...

Can we go and ask them to hold this car for 2 months until we got paid? Would anyone do such a thing for us? My husband approached our neighbour and asked if it would be ok for him to buy it at the end of August. Our neighbour replied that it worked out better since he had some work to do on it, but has to work in another province and wouldn't be back until END OF AUGUST to be able make those repairs!!!

This is how we have our very first car, debt free, within our budget, a perfect size... amen!! If we would've gone ahead and financed a car, taken on a debt, because of our impatience, we surely would've missed out on a super provision, a miracle. Our neighbours would never have asked us about the car, if we had had one in our drive way. Our declining financing of cars made sense. God foresaw this blessing and wanted to give us the best, debt free!

How We Got Out of Debt - Why and How We Manage Our Finances

My husband and I have not been brought up with a healthy relationship with money. We have both had "bad" role models on financial stewardship, but life isn't always so black and white. We were never taught to save, and money burned a hole in our pockets. If we had it, we spent it. If we wanted to buy something and didn't have the money for it, we simply borrowed or took loans for them. Some home items were bought on a monthly payment system, thankfully in Finland, but they too add up on bill day (The price tag doesn't change)! Anyhow, it seemed like our intentions were good, we tried to save up, but those savings too were spent eventually. We seemed to be eating our future paychecks and the pay was gone before we ever got to see it. We always tithed 10% regardless of our financial situation.

It wasn't until we moved to another continent that we were really put to the test. Money was sparse, we had a few maxed out credit cards (nothing major) that needed paying off and we were visiting the food bank on a regular basis. Our faith was put to the test. We even contemplated halving what we tithed until things settled a bit.

God was teaching us to trust in His timing with things that we wanted and needed. He taught us that His way would free us from our debts and loans. We watched the Financial Freedom Seminar (20h, 1h x 20 days) by Embassy Institute, in the evenings while the kids were sleeping. God showed us a lot, not just what the Bible says about finances, but also on other areas too. One major thing that I took with me was, "if you're moving in the right direction, it will be blessed", God blesses the right road. So my husband and I put that all to the test, what was there to lose?? First, we started to tithe from our first fruits, before tax. Secondly we made a promise to buy anything on credit. Thirdly, we aimed to pay off our debts and loans before we made any new purchases.

 We really needed a car. We didn't have money to buy a car and certainly not for another 5 years if we were to pay our debts off first and then pay the car in cash! Well, like I said -God DOES bless the right direction.

We had a few temptations along the way, to deal with the matter ourselves. One was increased credit on our credit cards. I had a letter and an email that said all I had to do is dial this number and press "9" for instant credit. Oooh that was tempting, especially because I wanted all our bills in one country (it would've saved us hundreds of over seas fee) which some of us know as "debt consolidation". But we were determined and we did recognize it as an attack, something good was coming and we were not going to blow it by accepting "worldly" ways. I'm so glad I deleted and threw that letter in the bin. Why?

Because, a few months later, while we had our taxes done and wishing for only enough to cover the service fee, God blessed our direction. We got enough taxes back to cover all the credit card bills and loans in Finland, and the sending fee -to the penny. Not kidding. It's true. It didn't make sense, and it didn't have to. We knew, it was all God!

So this is how we manage our finances. No living off credit. We have credit cards to pay for things that can only be paid by credit. If you can't afford it in cash, you can't afford it on VISA either. We will save up for everything. If we can't afford it there and then, then we don't buy it. We don't lend money, we give -if God puts that on our hearts. We tithe from our first fruits, not our seconds. We put some into savings, what ever we can on any given month. Our food budget is higher for a good reason. Quality over Quantity. Organic over Contaminated and so on... We are working on the savings part, we are still learning.

How did we purchase our very first car a few months later? Read all about it, here

Financial Freedom

We recently went through an online seminar on the topic of financial freedom. There are 20 individual lectures. This 7 biblical principle based seminar unveils God's purposes for money in our lives. As we watched each of the video seminars, we were more and more convicted in various areas of our finances. The most impacting of all, was on the topic of debt or should I say, no debt. Jim Sammons, the speaker gave a number of scriptual reasons for living debt free and gave some amazing real life examples of how this was and can be done. Bare in mind that this seminar is somewhat "dated" from around the mid to late 80's. However, the underlying principles are still very relevant today. 

We have decided to pursue a debt free life style and have purposed to clear off any debt in our lives. Yes this means NO mortagages, NO car loans or financing, NO maxed out credit cards etc.

Here is the link to the seminar. -- Embassy Institute --To watch all of the seminar, you need to register. We highly recommend everybody to do it and at only a minimal cost of 9 bucks.

Enjoy!