Thank God Friday - $1,300 Scramble

Admit it. You've missed me.
Missed me! Missed me! Now you have to kiss me!
(Don't tell Hotsauce.  It will be far more dramatic if you just come up and plant one on me right in front of him.)

Wait, disregard everything you've read to this point.  Seriously, don't kiss me.  It will just make things awkward between us and Hotsauce will try to punch your lights out and things will just get ugly.

So... how do you get back on track from that opening?

Oh, right. It's Thank God Friday. Which you probably guessed from that intro.  Or maybe not.

This week I'm really thankful for lessons learned!  As we continue on our Total Money Makeover journey I realize that some times a gazelle type intensity can lead us to make decisions that aren't as wise as we would hope they would be.

There's a reason that I've entitled this blog The Chronicles of the Fiscal Misfits and that's because we've made more poor decisions dealing  with our money than we'd ever like to admit.  And this lesson learned comes out of a long line of horrible decisions.

Here are the highlights:
1. Hotsauce and friend bought a house together to flip.
2. That was 12 years ago... they still own it, so the flip is now a flop.
3. They got a joint credit card together for purchases towards remodeling said house.
4. Friend was the primary card holder.
5. Hotsauce and his wife used said card for other purchases towards remodeling their own home. Friend knew about it.
6. Soon the outstanding balance belonged to us. Ugh.
7. Insert long, long story here.  Which includes minimum payments and missed payments.
8. Friend is irritated. Rightfully so.
9. Ugh.

Fast forward to three weeks ago.  Hotsauce is on phone with said company trying to work out a payment plan.  He offers to pay them $100 a month.  They're demanding more than 3 times that.  We can't swing it.  They tell Hotsauce that they are going to mark him down with a refusal to pay.

Whicka whicka what?? How is offering $100 a month a refusal?  That's how these sharks play this game.  They want their money and they want it now.

So Hotsauce offers a pay off of 60%.  They decline.  Saying that they will take no less than 75% of what is owed.  Hotsauce (in a completely unnatural state) says no.  He will just continue to pay $100 a month.  They again threaten to mark him down with a refusal to pay.  At which point we envision the teacher walking to the chalkboard and putting a check next to his name.  The conversation ends.

Before long the company calls back and magically they have decided to take the offer of the 60% payoff.  It's a savings of almost $900 for us.  We rejoiced!

Then the terms come in.  They will take the deal if we pay it off by the end of November.  Um, um, um... We essentially had 2 weeks to come up with $1,360 that we hadn't planned on spending.

We called this the $1,300 scramble.  And scrambled we did.  I prayed and hoped and bargained with God that I would have record Turkey Bottom Haven sales.  I did not.  In fact, sales have been way, way, way down.

I tried selling a bunch of things on "garage sale" type Facebook page.  I sold exactly nothing.

So we had an emergency budget meeting.  We looked at every category that we had and decided where we could "short change" ourselves.  We emptied our property taxes envelope and promised that after the first of the year we would make that up.  We emptied this envelope and that envelope and redid the December budget so that what we "stole" from November could be repaid in December.  And within 2 weeks we had the $1,360 to pay off the debt.

Hotsauce got a cashier's check from the bank (because that's what Dave says to do) and we paid the debt off.  But, unlike the time we paid the property taxes there wasn't any high fiving or happy dancing.  We were glad that our friend wouldn't have to deal with our irresponsibility and it was nice that we "saved" $900 and it was nice that we won't ever have to worry about that debt again.

There was still something in the pit of stomachs that just didn't feel right.

I think we were in such a rush to take care of this ourselves that we left God in the dust.  We didn't pray about this decision.  We never took it to the King of Kings to see how He would have us respond.  And in doing so we lost sight of our plan ... a plan that we agreed made sense... a plan that we agreed honored God.

So this isn't your typical Thank God Friday, but I am very thankful that when we get off track and we blaze before God that He is still faithful.  We may always be misfits, but His grace will always cover our misfitness.  Yes, that's a word.

How about some good news?  Anyone have a success story they'd like to share with us?  Who's paying off debt?