Update on whatever I can think of.

So far, we still don't know if we are going to be here for a while or someplace else come October.  Its totally in God's hands, so we are waiting on Him and His timetable.

Right now, I can tell you we are getting a little more partial to becoming stationary as soon as possible.  We are really wanting to settle down and stop moving and always being up in the air about getting to know people, making lasting friendships, getting involved in a church and community.  We never know how long we will be somewhere so its hard to be dependable in these areas.  This is an area we need prayer in because we don't want to become discontent with where God has us right now.  Though we can totally make it work, we would be rather crowded in our motor home once the baby gets here.  Especially, if Zekey isn't ready to move to a big bed.  He still sleeps in the pack and play.  We waited until Braden was over two before we moved him to the bunk bed and I was very happy we did.  Anyway, room to run around and play is limited too, as they are getting bigger.  Again, totally doable, just something we are praying about right now.  We certainly don't want to jump the gun.

We are going to go ahead and put our motor home up for sale now.  If it sells before we leave here we will just find alternate accommodations.  We will also rethink staying on the road any longer than that because we have a way of moving back home and not having to pay for a place to live for a while and Sam can find other means of income other than being a contractor.  Like I said, all of this is in God's hands.  We are seeing possibilities and praying for obvious guidance and wisdom to make the right decisions.

We are still making lots of progress on our debt.  We are hacking away at credit cards and still being able to bulk up our savings on occasion.  (We use it for emergencies like having to move quickly or getting something fixed, hospital bills, etc.)  We actually only have two credit cards left and Sam's school loan.  The school loan is getting payed of very quickly because we have been paying over on it since he got it.  The two credit cards are getting paid off because one of them is actually more like a scheduled payoff loan and has a scheduled payment plan and will actually have an end payment.  The other one is a regular credit card, but we are paying way over on it and we are really enjoying watching the balance consistently drop.  Hopefully, we'll be able to make some pretty large payments on it and then it will just cease to exist.  A little side note here.  I kept getting the same advice from people about closing accounts after you pay them off.  They all said you should wait at least three months to close the account because it will adversely affect your credit score.  Well, I don't care as much about that as I do not having those accounts open anymore!  AND all the ones we've paid off so far have been closed with no adverse affects to our credit score, so...... there you go.  

We have also sold the mobile home, praise God!  Its interesting how that came about, but suffice it to say it was a totally unexpected way that God brought it about and its very cool to say the least!  Its also another example for us to just wait on God to tell us when and how because His solutions are soooooo much better than our own!

The only other things we have are the van payment, we have a contract with ClearWire, our cell phones, our storage unit and Dish Network.  Dish Network is no big deal because I found out the other day that if we wanted to get rid of that right now it would only cost us $37.00 to break the contract.  ClearWire would be $175 to break contract, but they offer a way to have someone take over the contract and they get free activation and you just get out of the contract and any more responsibility with them.  We really like ClearWire, but we are not able to use it every where we go and when we settle down, I don't know that we will need to have that extra expense right away.  I have advertised the contract take-over and hopefully someone who is located in their current network will be interested and it will all be taken care of.  Otherwise, we will just have to suck it up and pay for the break.  It will all work out whatever happens.  We are not going to get rid of our cell phones because they are the only phones we have, but T-Mobile is really nice because if you happen to move somewhere they don't provide service, then they will release you from your contract.  I'd rather they just have service available and leave it at that.  The storage unit is an easy one.  Once we have a place to put all of our junk then that payment will just go away.  The van we just are making the payments on.  We looked into getting it refinanced, but it really would not have been best in the long run.  After our other debt is taken care of we will just put lump sums on that payment until it is payed off. 

Basically, our plan goes like this:  Pay off the highest rate debt first - credit cards.  After those are payed off then we take the money that we were paying on those and put it on the next debt to pay off - in this case we have decided to hit the school loan next.  It is a large chunk of money each month and we don't owe much on it and it wouldn't take long to pay it off.  Most financial advisers would have suggested the van get the next attention rather than the school loan, but because of the reasons already stated, we decided the van would come after the school loan.  Next we'll concentrate on the van because by this time we will have the money that we were paying on the credit cards and the school loans and be able to combine it all to pay off the van.  Yep, that will indeed go quickly.  Plus, you have to remember that during the time that we are paying off the other debts, each of the ones waiting to get the extra money poured onto it to pay it off is still being paid on.  The principle amounts will be steadily going down, so that by the time its turn rolls around to get paid off the balance amount will be even lower than when we first made our budget out.  By the way, we will be beefing up the savings along the way because there are always things that pop up and we don't want to have to shift money around from what we budgeted to compensate.

This is our static plan, but we do run into snafoos on occasion and have to rethink some things.  Its really not that big of a deal.  Oh, yeah, the other thing we do is take out cash for groceries, laundry and eating out.  When the money is gone, we wait until the next paycheck to get anything.  (This does get out of whack on occasion when we run out of several expensive things at the same time, i.e. diapers, wipes, TP, paper towles, but it always rights itself.  I also try to stagger buying that stuff so it doesn't happen often.)

So there is our getting out of debt update.  After October, I will be better able to evaluate what is most probably going to happen with us.  When we know, I will definitely update everyone. 

The other thing I need to do an update on is the pregnancy.  So far, so good.  I should be around 4 months right about now.  I haven't had a "real" sonogram yet to determine that for sure, but between the doctor's impromtu unofficial sonogram and the start of my symptoms, we should be close enough.  That should put the due date somewhere towards the end of February/beginning of March.  I do have an appointment tomorrow and should know when my sonogram will be.  Until then, I'm just guesstimating.  Really and truly, though, this baby will come out when he/she wants to, so trying to determine a date is just silly.  Braden came 12 days early and Zekey was born a week later after an induction. (He probably would have happily stayed in for another week or two.)  So, only God knows what this baby's time table is.  I like leaving it in His hands and not worrying about it anyway.:)  I'm still nauseated if I don't keep up with my eating schedule, every hour, and I have a tendency to be more ill in the evenings because I'm ready to call it a day, but other than that everything is going very well.  The heat also seems to be getting less intense lately.  The boys and I get outside a bit more often than we did and we also go do errands during the day on occasion, so its getting better all around.  I've also found a Moms Club and a Home School Group here and though I don't know how much we'll be able to participate because of the unknown travel possibilities, at least they are available and we are physically able to go.

Well, I think this is a long enough post, so I'm done for the day!