Miraculously Back On Budget | Miracle Story - Episode 10
Miraculously Back On Budget
In our marriage I was in charge of the checkbook, making deposits and paying bills. I was very new at this. I had a small checking account when I was in high school, but had very little money and no bills so I spent the money of what I wanted.
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I wasn’t very good at money management. I had very little money and didn’t keep an accurate record in my checkbook. No one had ever sat down with me to explain and talk about bank fees, etc. I got overdrawn and the fees sunk me. I didn’t have money coming in on a regular basis so there was no money to recoup what my error had caused. My mom had to bail me out and we shut down the account.
Not Very Good At Money Management
My husband made good money and we did very good. I was very determined to tithe and I did. I was trying very hard to do a much better job at managing our checkbook. On occasion I would still get overdrawn on a check and have to cover it.
You have to understand, this was in the time when you got a once a month bank statement and you wrote checks out of a checkbook. If you wrote down the wrong amount in your checkbook register or forgot to write one down completely you could be sunk if you lived with a very small margin in the bank.
When at a store and writing a check, you had to make sure you wrote it down in your register right then and that the amount was right. I had small little ones and any time we went shopping for groceries etc., it was chaos. It was not unusual for me to not write down a check from sheer distraction at the register.
The Pain of Writing Checks
I began ordering duplicate checks. They provided an instant carbon copy of the check you just wrote. Then you could go back later and enter it in your resister. It was a pretty good system but with one flaw. It gave you a false sense of security. I would write several checks on a day out running errands and not sit down to write them in the register for days.
Then I would be in shock. The mental register I was keeping in my head was never right. I don’t know if I was mentally rounding down or adding a non-existent buffer or what. Almost always when I would sit down to fill out my register I was always way below what I thought I had spent.
I Decided To Do Better
I purposed to do better and was able to get on track. Then one late afternoon I sat down at my desk to balance my bank account and pay bills.
When you would receive your monthly bank statement you would need to go through the process of balancing your account. You would take the balance on the bank statement and deduct any checks that had not cleared.That amount should match your check register.
That particular evening when I sat down and opened the statement I was gobsmacked! We were way in the hole. I mean way way in the hole.
As I began to read through and look at the cancelled checks that had cleared I saw that my husband was writing checks from his checkbook while I was writing checks from mine. Neither one of us was taking into consideration that the other one was also writing checks.
We Had Spent All His Paychecks Twice
Needless to say, we had both spent all of our money. It was a small town bank and they knew us so they just kept clearing our checks and charging a big fat fee with each one.
Not only was there no money to pay our bills we were way more than his next paycheck in the hole. Even if we didn’t spend one single dime it would take us at the very least a two months or more of paychecks to get even. We used almost all of his paychecks each month for bills and groceries and such. There was very little left over to pay the huge deficit.
I had already laid our bills out on my desk so I could write the checks and pay them. We had a house payment and two car payments, and of course utilities. Thankfully we did not have credit cards. But we had a huge grocery bill each month and he used a lot of gas.
The Hole of Debt Was Overwhelming
I looked at the desk covered in bills and the bank statement glowing in red ink. I was overcome. I rested my head in my hands and prayed. I cried. Then I sat up and laid my hands on the bills and bank statement and prayed. I made a declarative statement and called the bills paid and the statement in the black. I called things that were not as though they were.
I shoved the whole mess back, got up, and went about my day. When my husband got home I told him what had happened. We decided that there would be only one checkbook that I would keep and I would give him a cash allowance each paycheck for gas and whatever he needed going to work etc. Then other big purchases that we wanted like furniture or such we would discuss or do together.
In a side note here. He worked hard and I knew it. So often when he wanted a new gun or some other big item I would just let him get it and then I would juggle behind the scenes. I felt like since he worked so hard he deserved to have something fun from time to time even though it was often very hard to juggle the money.
We Made A Creative Plan And Stuck To It
Back to the checkbook mess. Then next day after praying, I sat back down to deal with the mess. I wrote down a plan. What we had to absolutely pay and the last possible day we had to pay it. I wrote down what his paychecks would be and when they would come. By my calculations we would be in the black with all bills paid and caught up in a two and a half months.
I scrounged to make the food we had last. I got real creative with our meals. But, they stretched for a good while at least until we got his next check which I cashed and kept enough cash for groceries and for him for gas. My husband already had some cash and he made that stretch for gas to go to work.
Suddenly In The Black
When we got the next bank statement the next month, not only were we in the black, but we had money in the account! I looked at my plan. There was no way that could happen - none.
I kept going over every single inch of it. No one had made any deposits for us. I thought our parents might have gotten wind of the situation and helped out, but no, there were no additional deposits.
I looked over every withdrawal. Only the checks I had written at the absolutely last minute for bills and utilities had come through, and all of them had come through.
I Couldn’t Not Figure It Out
I got out my calculator. I totaled my plan one more time. The same - two and a half months. I totaled the bank statement one month later. It was correct. I was obsessed in figuring it out. It made no sense, none. I can’t tell you how many times I tried and recalculated to see where I had made a mistake. I double checked the bills, the deposits. I could find no error.
After about two hours I sat back. The night when I had prayed and laid my hands on the pile of bills came to my mind. God had honored my faith and my request. That declarative prayer that called for the money happened. It was a miracle.
Originally published by me here: https://nancyjacksonauthor.com/blogs/miracles/my-life-of-miracles-pt-10
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