A Story of God's Provision (Part 5)

In case you need to catch up you can find Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, and Part 4 here.

It had been about three and a half years since Collin got let go from his job with the defense contractor, and just over three years that he had been working in automotive. We were both so tired of having "just enough" money to get by, so tired of Collin coming home from work tired and dirty, so tired of not having normal weekends. We had been praying like crazy and feeling like God wasn't listening. We knew He was, He'd proven to us time and time again that He was, but it was really frustrating that Collin still didn't have a better job.

I mentioned that Collin had talked with both Air Force and Navy recruiters. His parents suggested while we were living with them that maybe he should consider the military. I was NOT pleased with this prospect. I struggled with it so much. It caused lots of arguments and many tears for me. I just didn't feel a peace about the decision, but I supported my husband. If it's what he wanted then I would "join" the military with him. He got pretty much nowhere with the Air Force recruiter though. It felt like she kept stringing him along. And it's not like he isn't completely qualified. The man got a 93 on his ASVAB; super impressive!! He more than qualifies for the physical qualifications (run, situps, pull ups). We just couldn't understand why the recruiter wasn't being more proactive about him enlisting. So Collin began to consider the Navy. He met with a Navy recruiter and he seemed really interested in Collin. But then he never returned Collin's calls, was never in the office when Collin would go by, failed to set up appointments, he failed to keep Collin in the loop. I know this isn't the case with every recruiter but it was VERY frustrating for us. Collin hadn't given up on the military yet, but he was just about done trying to force them to accept him, especially when it wasn't really something he was completely passionate about. He felt he needed to join the military as a way to support the two of us.

The end of January 2013 came and I got a text message from my dad's best friend, Randy, who happens to be a Project Manager for a defense contractor in the area. He (along with everyone else we know) knew that Collin was still looking for a job, so he sent me a link to a web posting for a job he wanted Collin to apply for. Collin applied immediately and was called in for an interview the next week. His interview went extremely well! Afterwards Randy couldn't wait to gush to my parents about how well Collin did in his interview! A few weeks went by and we hadn't heard anything yet, though we were very hopeful that this could be the big break we'd been waiting for! The third week of February Collin got an e-mail telling him that he HAD been selected for the job but they were waiting to send out official offer letters until the program finalized its budget. WHOA! We were super excited, but still trying not to get our hopes up because in the contracting world, budgets fall through all the time. Five days later Collin got a phone call telling him that everything worked out and that he could come pick up his offer letter and they wanted him to start on March 11!!

Collin started this new job almost three weeks ago. And so far, it is great! We are finally working the same hours, he's actually making more than me now, which creates some financial security for us, and the company will pay for Collin to take college classes! This is the job that we've been waiting for since August 2009.

Looking back, all those "unanswered" prayers about Collin getting a new job, all the frustration, the military seeming to not work out, having to live with Collin's parents, living in a tiny one bedroom apartment, it all seems perfect now. Everything we experienced, everything we went through has prepared us for this new job. God's timing is absolutely perfect! Sure, things would have been a lot easier and less stressful on us if neither of us lost our jobs shortly before moving, but we wouldn't be the people we are now. That job that Collin lost was at a locally owned company that shortly after merged with a much, much larger national company; and many of the people got laid off then or quit because they were treated so poorly. What if that had happened after we were married? Or that job that I lost that I was miserable at. I wouldn't have been able to be so relaxed during the month before our wedding if I had that job, and I certainly wouldn't be in my current job at a company I love surrounded by coworkers who are so fun.

The military not working out was exactly what was supposed to happen. I would have been miserable as a military spouse. It would have brought so much stress to our relationship. I can barely go a weekend without having Collin around so how would I survive six weeks of boot camp and then however many months for A-School? And what would I have done if he got deployed? I knew that the military was not the direction God was sending us, but we didn't know what else it could have been.

Living with Collin's parents, though stressful and hard, was so awesome. It allowed me to get to know them in an intimate way that I probably wouldn't have otherwise. Since moving out I have a much, much deeper appreciation and love for my in-laws. Living with them helped me to feel like an actual part of the family instead of just an extension of Collin. Plus, there were all the financial benefits that we had living with them.

I think the biggest thing about all this, if we both started out with decent salaries or if we didn't have to worry about our finances much, I don't think we would be as close as we are. Because we struggled, it brought us so much closer together. We know how to have fun without having to spend money, we know how to find great bargains, and we figured out how to get by with the things we have. These are all habits that I know we will continue to live with!

One of the amazing things about the past three years is how God didn't once let us down. When we thought there was no way we were going to make it he provided for us in more ways than we ever could have imagined. God is so, so faithful and He always does and always will provide!

A Story of God's Provision (Part 4)

If you need to catch up, Part 1 is here, Part 2 is here, and Part 3 is here.

When Collin and I realized we needed to move out on our own again we began looking for a cheap one or two bedroom apartment. It is VERY expensive to live here in Southern Maryland. We live in the 14th wealthiest county in THE UNITED STATES. That's a big deal. There's a rather large Navy base here that pulls a lot of engineers, logisticians and other high salaried people to the area. Plus, we're less than 2 hours from D.C. so people even live here and commute. Because there is a lot of money in the county things are more expensive. But that makes it very hard for the people who don't make what those other people do. Sure I may work for a defense contractor, but I don't make anywhere close to the salary of some of those people. And with Collin working at Wal-Mart on cars, he certainly didn't make much. Now granted, if it weren't for my student loans, we would be okay, but those pesky payments are just enough that we really have to pinch our pennies.

We searched for a little while for an apartment and we found a cute little one bedroom in a community that we had previously wanted to live in. It was just the right price for our budget and we put down a deposit! We signed the lease and moved in May of 2012. It was a relief to finally be in our own place! We knew that when we moved we would have to be even more frugal with our money than we were living with Collin's parents. We would have expenses that we didn't have while with them, but we knew we could and would make it work.

We had not been making any of these decisions alone. Throughout every step we prayed and sought God's guidance for what we should do and each time we felt like the decisions we were making were the ones that He wanted us to choose. Therefore we knew that with His help we would be okay.

We were so glad to have our own apartment. But once we moved out and had a little perspective and a little bit of distance from living with Collin's parents, we saw what a HUGE blessing it had been. God provided us with a wonderful home, wonderful parents, and a chance to get our lives back together. That plan we made to live with a roommate that fell through before we moved in with his parents would have been the worst mistake, ever. If we had gone through with that, we would have had enough money from our paychecks to cover our bills but we never would have been able to pay down our credit card as fast and we certainly would not have been able to save money! Plus, that guy we were going to live with turned out to be in worse financial shape than us and we would have had to cover his part of the finances as well as our own and we would have been even worse off than before!

So after two years of marriage, we were finally at a place financially where we weren't freaking out and having to go into our reserve funds to pay for stuff. Money was still tight but we were managing it a lot better; eating out less, buying less clothing (in my case), being mindful of the groceries we buy, etc. However, we were still dealing with Collin's work. He had been at Wal-Mart for over two years and was miserable. The hours he worked were less than ideal and the only day that we both had off was Sunday; and those were usually busy because of church and then wanting to spend time with people as a couple. Throughout all this Collin had been applying for jobs all over the place. He even talked to both Air Force and Navy recruiters. He was tired of working at a dead end job, getting treated so poorly and barely making above minimum wage. Collin wants to finish college and do something exciting with his life.

In June of 2012, Collin got a new job at a locally owned tire & auto garage, one that had better hours and slightly better pay than Wal-Mart. At this job, Collin worked from 7:30-5:30 Monday through Friday and from 8-1 on Saturday. His base pay was less than what he made at Wal-Mart, but because he worked 55 hours a week he got overtime pay which was time and a half. It ended up being a good bit more than his pay at Wal-Mart. This seemed like a great step up for the time being. And it was for us financially and relational. We had a little more security with money and we were finally able to have somewhat normal hours together. Collin still worked Saturday mornings, but we had the whole afternoon and evening together! It was wonderful! But the job began to take its toll on Collin. He was so tired from being on his feet 55 hours a week. And his boss (the owner of the garage) was very firm and completely different from his boss at Wal-Mart.

At this point, the Navy was really starting to look like our best option. So we kept praying and waiting for an answer from God... just waiting like we had been doing for three years!

A Story of God's Provision (Part 3)

In case you missed them, you can find Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

March 2011 arrived and there we were with a credit card balance of almost $4,500, a savings account with less than $1,000 in it and paychecks that just didn't quite pay all the bills. It's not like we had been spending our money on ridiculous/frivolous things, or even big ticket items for that matter, we were really quite frugal. However, we definitely ate out more than we should have and I definitely bought more clothes/goodies than I should have. We were unfortunately living in a place that we just couldn't afford. Even with Collin's minimal annual raise in January and the small annual raise I was expecting in May, we knew our financial situation was not good.

A couple months before our lease was up, Collin's parents sort of casually mentioned to us that we could always live in their basement for a little while if we needed. I was dead set against that because I wanted to be independent. We were married now. Married people don't live with their parents. However, after our other plan fell through to move into an apartment with a roommate we prayed long and hard and felt God calling us to move in with Collin's parents. It was so uncomfortable having to approach them and see if the offer still stood for us to live in the basement. Of course they were more than gracious to help us out. And we even had our own private living quarters in a way. We had our own living room, bedroom, bathroom, fridge/freezer, microwave and sink downstairs. The only thing we needed to go upstairs for was to use the kitchen and enter/exit the house.

Before we moved in we sat down with Collin's dad and had a talk about our financial plan for while we lived with them. They wouldn't let us contribute financially to living there, but the deal was that each month we would put $500 into savings and $250 would go towards the credit card to pay down our balance. We still had to pay for our cell phones, insurance, car loans and my student loans, but our expenses drastically decreased! This was a huge, huge blessing for us! We could finally get out from under this money cloud that loomed over us.

Living with Collin's parents was not all easy. It was very difficult at times for me to live in someone else's house, especially after having lived on our own for a year. I felt like his parents, his mom especially was trying to do everything for us and I wanted to be as independent as possible. I wanted it to seem like we were still living on our own even though we were just underneath our parents. But I couldn't be completely independent; and so it made me very bitter and very frustrated with not being able to be the wife I felt like I should be. This caused some tension between Collin and I, and at times some tension between his mom and I. Collin and I even sought some counseling from our pastors at church (a husband and wife team) because we were fighting so much and couldn't figure out why. We had been married about a year and a half and it felt like we just fought all the time. We weren't headed for divorce, but we just wanted to be able to go a day without having a fight.

After about a year, I finally knew that it was time to move out. I was becoming a very negative person (totally opposite of my usually cheery, bubbly self) because of my attitude toward his parents. I LOVE Collin's parents. They are amazing people and so, so gracious. But I just couldn't get past the need to be independent. I couldn't see them for the wonderful people they truly are because all I saw was the couple "preventing" me from being the wife I wanted and to have the independence I wanted. We both knew that if we wanted to have a good relationship with his parents (and a good relationship between ourselves) we needed to find our own place again.

We were able to pay the credit card off by the beginning of 2012 and our savings had a bit more money in it than we started out with. It was still not a lot though because I got so antsy about paying off the credit card that I did take some money from savings to pay it. But with the debt gone and another annual raise for each of us we decided that if we found an apartment that was cheap enough we could indeed move out on our own once more.

A Story of God's Provision (Part 2)

In case you missed part 1, you can catch up here.

May of 2010 came and went and we were blissfully happy! We were married and living on our own, both of us for the first time. Before we got married we joined bank accounts, combined all our finances, and decided that to get the best benefits from our credit card we would use our credit card for all of our purchases to rack up points and earn cash back. This seemed like a really great plan. We would pay off the credit card every month with the money from our bank account, and we always had enough. Until we didn't.

We paid for everything we possibly could with that credit card; rent, gas bill, electric bill, phone bill, insurance, groceries, water/sewer bill, clothing, eating out, Netflix, etc. It all got charged to the credit card. This was in addition to the money that was automatically coming out of the bank account each month for my student loan payments, car loan and our tithes to the church. And then there were the unexpected charges like when our cat, Stank, got really sick and we had to take him to the vet. Or when our "built-in" pantry shelves fell down and we had to buy something new to replace it with. Those things really add up, especially the unexpected charges!

Eventually it got to the point that we started having to take money out of savings to pay off the credit card completely. Our pay checks were just not enough. It started out as not much, just $25, then $50, then $100 and it kept increasing until we'd dwindled our already not very large savings account to just under $1,000. When this happened we ended up not being able to pay the credit card in full every month. Granted this didn't happen right away, it took several months for us to start racking up this debt. But by this point, my spending habits had been formed and it was REALLY hard for me to cut back. Before getting married I was so used to buying clothes whenever I wanted. I've ALWAYS been a thrifty shopper, but when you are really struggling financially, even being thrifty doesn't make up for buying frivolously. I never hid my purchases from Collin, but it got to the point where he would get really upset with me for buying something new that wasn't a need. And I would get really defensive and many arguments broke out because of my spending habits.

The first year of marriage is hard enough on its own, adjusting to life together, figuring out all the idiosyncrasies of living with a new person, but to add financial stress on top of that is no cake walk. It was hard. Very, very hard. We fought a lot and most of the fighting stemmed from something dealing with our financial situation. And it didn't make things any better that our work schedules were so different. I worked "normal" hours from 7-4:30 and had every other Friday off (still do), while Collin's schedule changed all the time. Working retail will do that. At this point the TLE (Tire & Lube Express) was open from 7am-9pm. Most days Collin worked from 12-9. However, that didn't mean he would get off at 9, sometimes it was close to 10 when he would get home from work and by that point I was ready for bed. And then even once the TLE began closing at 7pm, most days Collin would still be at work until 8 or 9, including Saturdays! That was hard in and of itself. We didn't have a "normal" life as I had always imagined it would be.

So our first year of marriage was quickly going by. We weren't getting to spend much time together (another bad thing for my shopping habits... when I was bored/lonely I would shop), and we were quickly accruing credit card debt. It came time for us to begin thinking about either renewing our lease or moving somewhere else. When we got our renewal notice in the mail, of course our rent had been increased. We both decided that there was no way we could stay in our town home, especially not with a rent increase since we couldn't afford it at the price it was. We started praying about what we should do and where we should move. We thought we had it all figured out but then our plan fell through. However, God provided us with a solution. It wasn't one that I embraced with open arms. But as I look back now, it was the absolute best thing for us at this point.

A Story of God's Provision (Part 1)

In July of 2009 Collin and I got engaged! One of the prerequisites we'd set for ourselves to get married was that we both needed to have full time permanent jobs. Until July, Collin had been working full time with a contractor but only on a temporary basis. He was then offered a full-time position with a new contract that was being awarded. Great news! Collin proposed and we were so happy. Then about a month later, Collin got let go from that job, we're still not completely sure why. We were crushed! We'd already set our wedding date; already started planning. So we kept up with plans, praying hard and just knowing Collin would find a job in the 8 months until our wedding. However, after months of looking, applying at all the government contractors and not even getting an interview, Collin knew he needed to just get any job. A friend of ours worked at Wal-Mart in the Tire & Lube Express. He urged Collin to apply, and though it wouldn't be an ideal job, at least it would be something until a better job came along. We'd been praying for something to come along, and this just seemed like it was where God wanted Collin to go for now. Collin was hired and started at Wal-Mart on January 1, 2010. Things were looking pretty good. With my salary and Collin now having at least a steady job (even though it wasn't the best pay or best job) we put a deposit down on a town home to move into once we got married.

March 2010 arrived and we were so close to our wedding! Things were going good and we were both really excited for the future! Then I find out that I'm being let go from my job. I'd been there just under a year, and though I didn't love it, it paid really well. My last day of work with that company was March 26, only 29 days from our wedding, and the exact day that we signed the lease on our town home and Collin moved in. You guys, this was scary. Collin working at Wal-Mart was NOT enough to support us. Not even close. I immediately applied for unemployment benefits, not sure that I would get them, but thank goodness I was approved. I hated having to use government help, but without it, we would have struggled much more. Having a rent payment, two student loan payments (that add up almost to our rent payment), cell phone bill, a car loan, and now all the expenses of living on your own (utilities, food, etc.) we needed that unemployment check.

I began praying hard. I didn't know why God would do this to us. So close to our wedding day; so close to beginning our future. I had no idea why God would let me lose my job. But I prayed, knowing that He could and would provide me with a new one. Fortunately I found a job within two weeks of my last day of work. However, I didn't start until after our wedding, because really, I would need to take a week off after only working for a week. I discussed this with my new boss and he was perfectly okay with me starting my job on May 3, after the wedding and honeymoon were over. And this is when I realized that God used the loss of my job for good. It allowed me to focus solely on wedding planning. That final month before the wedding would have been the most stressful month of my life, but because I was unemployed, because I found a job shortly into my unemployment, I was able to focus all my time and attention on the last minute details of our wedding. It was the BEST blessing, ever. So after the wedding was over and we returned from our honeymoon, I started my new job. And as excited as I was for my new job, I was NOT excited to have to take a $4/hr pay cut. When we looked around for where to live months prior, we took in to account our salaries. That pay cut was going to hurt, but little did we know how much!