Monthly Archives: February 2015

Day 2058 – Unfettered Joy – or Childlike Faith

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Yesterday, I found an old photo from my visit to Disneyland. It was when I was riding the teacups and just laughing with joy at how fast I was going. I swear I will be like a child until the day I die. But I don’t think this is a bad thing.

“At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:1-4

This verse gives my childlike heart such joy. On the outer layer, you can think, alright, being a kid is great, it’s ok to act like a kid. Wooo hoo!!!

But there is a much deeper, much harder truth to this. If we can strip away out “adult” minds and our “learned minds” and break life down to a simple, child like faith, we are asking ourselves to believe much.

Take away the big words and the big thoughts and our belief comes down to this:

We were created by God
We were bad (sinned)
God is good and can’t be with bad
Because God loves us, sent Jesus to pay for our bad
If we believe Jesus did that, we are good
When we are good, God does good for us
Everything that happens to us is for our good

I mean, think about the weight of that last statement and believing that like a child. There is no explaining it with big words, there is no deep thought. God says He works all things together for our good and we believe that. That’s it.

Oh Lord, let it be that my heart is ever simple and only focused on You.

And thanks for Disney, that was mighty nice of ya. 🙂

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Day 2057 – Love To Travel, But Don’t Have The Money? – or – How We’re Flying To California For Free (Almost)

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We LOVE to travel!! I don’t think we realized how much until we had more money to do so!

Before this Christmas, we tended to take the super cheap ways in travel. We’d have to get a lower grade room or sleep in our car. We even had to cut our honeymoon short. Being in debt for so long, finally paying it off and Bret landing a teaching job has radically changed our financial situation.

We’ve splurged a little over the past few months with travel and eating out. I told you a few days back that we’re taking a weekend trip to go to a concert. While booking the hotel, I realized, you know, I just learned a LOT of great tips for saving on flights…I should share that!

A few months back, we finally signed up for a Southwest credit card. I think it’s one of the better rewards credit cards out there…especially if you fly even a little.

I lucked out and signed up during a promotion; if you spend $2000 within your first 90 days, you’ll get 50,000 bonus miles.

We hope to hit that number pretty soon. What I love about the Southwest Credit Card so far is how easy it is to earn miles and opportunities for bonus miles.

A particularly awesome way to rack up the points is Rocketmiles. This is a way to earn rapid rewards through booking hotels. I just booked our hotel for the concert and will get a bonus 5,000 miles! I mean, that’s like spending $5000 on my credit card! So, just by booking a hotel through the website (which we needed anyway), I’m getting miles.

Let me give a practical example.

You earn 1 mile for every dollar spent on your purchases. You’ll get 2 miles for every dollar spent through Southwest and their travel partners (hotels and car rentals). I’ve noticed they send a ton of other ways to get bonus miles too. Before Valentine’s Day, they had an offer for bonus miles if you ordered flowers through 1-800 flowers.

Now let’s break down your potential based on your normal cost of living expenses. Since this can range depending on a million factors, I’m going to just use $2000 as a starting point. I’ll also use our typical travel as well.

Yearly expenses amount – $24,000 i.e. 24,000 points
Our bonus for signing up and spending the amount required on the new credit card – 50,000 miles
Our bonus for booking a hotel through Rocketmiles – 5,000 miles
Rough estimate of cost of tickets to California at Christmas time for two – $1,100
Rough estimate of points for California at Christmas time for two – 76,578 miles
Rough cost of tickets to California at Christmas time after using points – $22.00

Total miles earned – 79,000
Miles left over after booking flight – 2,422
Cost to visit family for Christmas – $22

What about you? Do you have any money saving travel tips??

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Did you like what you read? Here’s some ways you can support us and this blog!
Join our Facebook group, Planning an Epic Road Trip on Any Budget
Join the Journey With The G’s email list (bonus – you get my Epic Road Trip Budget spreadsheet)
Buy my book, Planning an Epic Road Trip on any Budget.
Buy my book, Trusting God With 2 Cents: 22 Days To Becoming A Successful Christian Business Owner.
Shop on Amazon (no additional cost to you, this gives us a percentage of what you order).
Check out our resources page.
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Day 2055 – You Have No Excuse For Not Reading

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I hate excuses. I hate when my tendency is to make them. Starting an email to someone saying “I’m sorry this took so long” kills me. I hate when people whine and complain and don’t DO anything about it. Seriously, if you hate your job, do something else or be thankful for what you have.

Ok, ahem, let me step down from my soap box and give you some practical tips I’ve used over the last week or so.

A list of tips for everyone who thinks they don’t have time to read:

– Take Facebook, Twitter, whatever off your phone and install/use your ebook reader. When you have the two minutes to kill in line somewhere, pull up the ebook reader and READ.

– Turn off the TV at the end of the day and READ. Want mindless entertainment? There are a ton of books that fit that bill. (But I’ll be nice and not give suggestions.) 😀

– Waiting for someone? Pull out the book in your purse, laptop bag or satchel and READ.

– Fun fact – the average person reads between 40-100 pages per hour. Even if you’re SUPPPPPPER slow and read 10 pages per hour, if you cut out that hour TV show each night, you’ll read a 200 page book in under 3 weeks. If you read your 10 pages every night for an hour, you’ll read about 17 200 page books in a year. If you can read 50 pages an hour, that’s one 200 page book every 4 days…..averaging that, you’re looking at about 90 books in a year.

– Accountability/tracking app – Goodreads. You can find your friends and share books with them, add books you want to read and find books you didn’t know about through suggestions.

– Listen to them! Books on tape are a great way to rack up the numbers. The last two weeks, I’ve gone down to a friend’s house in DC, which is about an hour from Bret’s school. So I’ve been listening to How To Win Friends And Influence People In The Digital Age. It also helps to pass the time of a long drive. This particular book helped me figure out a problem I was facing almost immediately. Great read!

– Read to your kids, spouse, dog, cat, invisible friend.

What’s your excuse? I’ll talk you out of it. 🙂

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Day 2054 – Sometimes Sacrifice Leads To Regret, Sometimes It Leads To Untold Blessing

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I’ve blogged a lot about sacrifice. I’ve blogged a lot about what we’ve cut out of our lives to pay off our debt.

I’m the type of person that does not live with regret. I can look at things and think, wow, that was a bad decision, but I learned from it. Or I can look at something and see how God could have used the situation in one way or another. If I offend someone, I do what is in my power to fix the situation, but at the end of the day, I’m not worried about my reputation. I truly believe that if I am in the right, one day God will defend me.

I can look back on my life and think, wow, it would’ve been really cool if I could have done that or should have done that.

Regret? No sir. I have lived my life, my choices are my own and I live with the consequences.

But I will say there was one thing that I do deeply regret. What’s funny, is that this is a seemingly small thing. You would think that I would deeply regret something big.

A few years back, Bret and I had the opportunity to go see a band we both really love, Thrice. The band has moving songs and a great range of style. The concert was during their farewell tour. It was one of those “we have to go or we will never be able to see them live” type things. But, they were touring during our very hard financial times….the times when we had to cut EVERYTHING out. So even though it wasn’t an expensive show, maybe $20-30, it was still too much.

I look back and see that it was wise to not go. And I HAD seen them myself…just not with Bret.

So, I harbored my regrets but knew nothing could be done.

Then something happened.

I’ve been a “fan” of Thrice on Facebook for years. Since they aren’t touring/together, I didn’t see many updates. But one day, an article popped up, the “Thrice was mentioned in a post” type thing. By George, it was an interview with a band member saying that they may tour again. WHAT?!?!?!?! Are you kidding me??? Are you saying that I may have a chance to see this band again? WITH MY HUSBAND??? I did some research, but no information. I then created a monthly reminder to check for a show. A few weeks back, I saw a post about a festival in Canada…but it was during the week and school….so, that wouldn’t work. But I pressed on and kept checking.

Yesterday, the heavens opened wide and a post was shared by Thrice. They would be playing at the Surf and Skate Festival in New Jersey. Three and a half short hours away.

Friends, we now have two tickets to see our beloved band in a few weeks. We’re even talking about splurging to get a hotel for the whole weekend.

So, if you’re going through a time of sacrifice. Of regret. Of thinking you will never get a chance to do/see/buy/whatever something. Take heart. Sometimes God sees your sacrifice and overwhelmingly blesses you with a gift you never expected.

Heaven knows we’re jumping for joy. 🙂

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