I have known about FPU since my senior year of college. Sister Marla gave me "The Total Money Makeover" in 2012. I attended some of the classes, and I kind of tossed the book to the side until last year... Last year I was scared. Last year I questioned why I went back to school. Then on August 20th I saw an Instagram/ Facebook post from my friend Kamille that changed my life. She talked about how she and her husband were paying off their student loans... What?! I thought we die with these. So I reached out to her and she began to share their testimony. As we started our journey they became debt free and seeing them made me realize that this is a possibility for us too. I asked Eddie what he thought about us ordering FPU, and he was on board. We ordered FPU the following week and decided that Monday nights at 8:00pm for the next 9 weeks we would make it a date to watch the videos and fill out our workbook. Every week we were learning more and more information, and the discus...

Since I heard the words we found a mass on your right breast last Sunday I have been trying to process how I feel. When you hear the doctor tell you something like that it literally feels like a movie the doctor kept talking, and I didn't hear much else. I finally responded and I don't know what I told him. As soon as he left I was numb... Why me? Why is this happening again? It's not fair! Then I thought about a sermon I believe my dad preached it actually Trusted with Trouble was the title. He talked about the story of Job, and how God allowed all of these things to come into his life that seemed completely unfair, but he gave him double for his trouble. After I found out the news I looked over to Eddie and he said well at least we found it... What if we didn't come to the hospital today. The thing is that we came to the hospital for something completely unrelated. I told them I didn't have time to run all of the test that they wanted to run because I had to cat...

So I never talk about it, but I have PCOS. It stands for Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. Honestly I don't know everything that there is to know about it, but I know that it has had some effects on me and many of my other cysters. Since September is PCOS awareness month I felt that it was finally the right time to share my story. I first found out that I may have PCOS my freshman year of college I was given birth control pills and not much follow up. This diagnosis was confirmed by a jerk doctor when I was 23. The reason I say this is because dude was rude as heck. I am already anxious when I go to the doctor because last time I went I had a phyllodes breast tumor that ended in two surgeries. that experience at 20 scarred me, so it's challenging for me to even schedule a doctors appointments because of fear. Anyway this doctor wanted to take internal pictures, and that wasn't happening because I was so stressed about the entire procedure. The frustrated doctor said, "fin...

This morning I was looking through some old pictures, and the first word that came to mind was grateful. As I scrolled through my camera roll I looked at the babies that were born, the homes that were purchased, the degrees that were finished, the jobs that were started, the marriages that began, the bodies that were healed, the debt that has been eliminated, and the relationships that have been restored all as a result of prayer. I am amazed at all that God has done for not only me, but also those around me. As I also looked at those pictures I was reminded of the times before those highlighted pictures, and the process that it took to get there. I remember the tears, the stress, the wondering why me. Now I realize on the other side of some things that God had a purpose in each of those processes. One story that truly sticks out is the process of finding a new job. I hadn't had to look outside of my company for a new job in five years because I was blessed with new opportuniti...

     We live in a very distracted world. The smart phone is a curse and a blessing. Yes we can do things quickly, and we have the world at our fingertips, but are we really living in the moment? How many of us are guilty of having our phones out, and texting while we should be out enjoying time with our friends or our significant others? We all at times are very distracted.      When I think about how social our lives are now with the boom in social media we live in a world where it didn't happen if it wasn't captured for the "likes."  We spend time capturing the perfect picture or the perfect video so that others think that we are doing "well" in life. I think if we really captioned what was going on in some of these pictures we wouldn't be so quick to compare our lives to others.      For example when someone posts #NewCar did they really pay for it out right? I highly doubt it! What you don't see is the high car payment that is stre...

It has been a little over a month since my family attended the Bishop T.D. Jakes leadership training. As I continue to think about the big takeaways from that training there are a few things that stand out in my mind. 1.) Leaders look for problems. This one really resonated with me because people get paid to solve problems. If you want to start a business, or get a raise on your job look for problems and have solutions. People will pay for people to solve their problems. 2.) You can't run a business and not like people. Having strong relationships is the backbone of a great business. There is no way that you can be successful, and always have a bad attitude. At some point in life you are going to need others so burning bridges is not the way to go. I am not talking about toxic people; if people are bad for your life then eliminate them. However, if you always seem to be cutting people every single year maybe you are the problem, and you need to reassess your life. 3.) Let it ...

     In 2018 although we have huge financial goals, and we will hit them! We also have some things that we are going to spend some money on because they are important to our personal growth, development, and well being. We believe that investing in yourself, your marriage, your family, and your friends are some of the greatest investments that you can make. Every year you should set aside some money in your budget to make those investments. Below is a list of some of the investments that we are making in 2018... 1. Our spiritual growth and development. This year we plan to invest money in both of our spiritual development through conferences and books. We both put on our vision boards this year that we wanted to grow in our individual walks with God, so we knew that putting money aside for these events and books was really important to that overall 2018 goal. Throughout the year we will also continue to find other events at our church and other churches that will assis...

     Yes we are saving money, and in the last post I gave you our huge debt payoff goals for 2018, but one thing that is really important to us is putting aside time and money for dates!          Just to give you all an idea of our weekly budget for dates while we are paying off debt; we put in a line item of $80 per week to spend for our entertainment. Most weeks we don't even use half of this money, but it is there for us to enjoy one another during this journey to being debt free. Here are some ways that we are stretching our weekly date night dollars. 1. If people ever ask you all what you want for a gift ask for restaurant gift cards! We have gone on so many dates with these gift cards. We got several as wedding presents that came in handy during our first year of marriage. We also got a few as Christmas and birthday presents. We use these throughout the year for those nights that we don't want to cook, or we just want to connect with one...

      Now that we are well into 2018. I am beyond excited to see how far we have come financially. In 2017 we paid off over $20,000 of debt, and we now have under six figures of debt. We started our debt free journey last year not because we had bad credit, or because we were struggling financially. We just wanted more for our lives and for our future.  I always told Eddie that we would be young millionaires, but how that was going to happen I wasn't exactly sure. At the beginning of 2017 we thought we were doing so well with paying off debt. In the first 9 months of the year we paid off  about $8,200. This came from medical debt, and some credit card debt.      After we began Financial Peace University in October we were able to pay off over $10,000 in debt in just 3 months. A large portion of this $10,000 was my car loan. I can not begin to describe how good it feels to no longer have consumer debt, medical debt, or car debt. We are down to onl...