Back to Step 1

Is it really going back to step 1 if you never did step 1 to begin with? We were fortunate that we had a chunk of change in our savings account to begin with, but now that's all gone gone gone, and we are back to step 1--Building our baby emergency fund.

As I stood in the transmission shop yesterday and wrote the check, it made me think back to when we bought our house, and I was shocked to think back and remember the day we closed on our house and how we scraped together just enough to close that day, and thanks to the wonders of FHA mortgages, we brought less money to close on our house than we did to rebuild our transmission. Scary thought huh?

We managed to drain our baby emergency fund and also budget around an extra paycheck for both of us this month and cover the cost of ALL of our car repairs without having to borrow money or (gasp) use a credit card. Talk about a bad month, we had 2 oil changes, a blown brake line, and a transmission rebuild...all in about 3 weeks.

It did motivate me to get a few things that have been just taking up space in our basement out on CraigsList and sold. We don't really need the money for regular expenses or anything, but it will definitely help bring the emergency fund back up to completion.

Overall, I can't really complain. We were faithful and continued to tithe, our bills are all going to get paid, and we are no worse for the wear. Thank you Jesus!