Day 28 and Being Content With What we Have

We studied this verse in our Sunday school class this morning:
Hebrews 13:5-Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,
"Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you."
Have you ever noticed how hard it is to be content with what we have? We always seem to think we want or deserve something more, something bigger, something better. That is something that I struggle with almost everyday. Tom got himself an MP3 player with some of his Christmas money, I suddenly want one, too. Now I like music, but I hate ear piece headphone things and it's not like I can walk around listening to it while the kids are here. (Although it sure would come in handy sometimes. LOL). I look at a toy catalog and I "need" one of those toys for my kids. I walk down the clearance aisle at Wal-Mart, and I "need" something because it's on sale and it's cheap. I used to go to garage sales and come back with tons of stuff and have to find somewhere to put it because it was "only ___". I did finally break myself of that habit! We fill our lives with stuff, maybe trying to fill some kind of hole inside-I don't really know. I'm sure a lot of it is marketed to us (and our children!) to condition us that we need or want their product. I want to learn to be content with what I have. I have a wonderful husband and children, terrific friends and family, a lovely home, plenty of food to eat, clothes to wear, cars to drive, the list goes on and on. What more do I truly "need"? I can't think of a thing! Anything else is not a need, it's a want! And I don't want it more than I want financial peace!

Today is 4 weeks into the FPU class, our 5th class is tonight. In these four weeks, we have saved $380 for our emergency fund. That's an average of $90 a week that we've saved! We've paid off around $1171 in debt, that's about $293 a week or almost $42 a day! Of course, some of it would have been paid anyway, but some of it wouldn't have been, the car payment that we just made on Friday comes to mind. Not only did we get it paid, but we got it paid on time so there was no late fee.

Thank you to all of my friends and family for your support, and thank you God for the wonderful blessings you have given us, far above what we truly need.