Living MY OWN life..

So tonight in TMMO Chat we talked about a friends sister who isn't taking responsbility for her life. I started talking about my own life and then decided to write a blog on it because it really hit me and I realized that I really had a good posting to do lol.

So here it is ... My story about how and why I decided to live my own life!

I was married at the age of 18, fresh out of high school, got married on July 15th and then had twins of July 20th of the next year. We were doing pretty good financially when we first got married, or so we thought lol, then when I got pregnant with the twins I was taken off of work. I worked in a factory with my husband and the dr didnt' want me standing on my feet on a concrete floor since I was having lots of problems (contractions at 24 weeks). So I tried to work at various other places where I wouldn't have do as much manual labor but the dr still said no and that I needed to just stay home and take it easy. PROBLEM... that doesn't pay the bills!

So we went under really quick becasue you guessed it as a young married couple prior to getting pregnant we were living stupid. We had bought a brand new car, had personal loans out with those high interest rate creditors and had a few credit cards. Of course with my income gone and only his income this was a real hardship on us.

The car quickly got reposseed, which my mom ended up paying to get back for us then we owed her on top of everything else. The bills quickly got behind and we were sunk!

Now fast forward to after delivery. I delivered the girls on July 20th 1996. Returned to work about 4 weeks later with my mom watching the girls. I worked 2nd shift back at the factory because they let me come back at my same pay and seniority. The bills were still hard to pay and we were still living stupid! We thought since I was back at work that things would get better and yes they would have except we kept going farther and farther into debt.

We filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 1998 then started over .. still not learning anything from this deal. We lived in his parents rental house when they decided to sell out on both homes and buy a different home for themselves, we had no where to go and we were scared again. This happend when the girls were about 2 years old. My mother bailed us again, there was a nice house up for sale in our town that was an old rental house and the guy that owned it had passed away, his wife was selling all his rental homes. We made a low offer of $15,000.00 and it was accepted (They were asking $30,000.00 because it needed some work). We took the deal with my parents purchasing it and the bank said if we made the payments for 3 years then we could refinance it into our own names after that.

Trying not to bore you too much so we'll fast forward, let's just say we still lived stupid! The day the girls started Kindergarten I started at the local community college to fulfill my lifelong dream of Cosmetology. This was a full time school Monday through Friday from 8:30 am - 4:30 pm so working on the side wasn't really an option to me. Well I probably could have but at the time chose not to because remember I was till living stupid! So I finished school. went to work at a salon and things were looking up. Then my husband and I got a divorce in 2002. I won't go into the details of that but things just didn't work out and we basically took the high - road out.

I met Chris, my fiance' in 2003 and we moved into together shortly after that, the girls and I relocated up by Chicago because he had a good job there and we thought we could make it. Things were so expensive there and the girls missed our hometown, so we moved back here after 6 months, Chris moved here with us and had a hard time finding a job. We lived in my parents old house because they had bought a new house and we were struggling. In 2005 Chris got offered a good paying job in Concrete/Construction which was his line of work. Also in 2005 Chris had to file Chapter 7 bankruptcy because of some stupid things he did with his money when he lived at home and let's just say his mom didn't help any lol. He had a 2003 Dodge Ram with a Hemi engine that he just had to have and it got repossessed.

In 2006 we decided to follow our path of stupidity and got approved for a mortage loan. We bought our house in July of 2006 and we were way over on our budget for this (if we would have had one). THIS was one of the stupidest things we ever did, because we were pretty much living rent free in my parents old house and yet we decided to get a house of our own??? Doesn't make much sense does it?

So I gave you this run down of my life so you understand this, I started out young and stupid and stayed in that rut for many years! I was always living my life trying to please others, buying the big expensive things to flaunt the money we "didn't" have! I always thought of myself as a caring person who cared more for my family and friends then I did myself .. then in November of 2006 my brother introduced me to Dave Ramsey and his Total Money Makeover. My life was going to change!!!

I am still on the Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover plan and it is a struggle but it has made me realize some things about my life. I have changed my whole way of thinking, not only financially but emotionally and spiritually. I've done a lot of soul searching and realized that even though I THOUGHT I was living my life to please others before myself, I was actually still only pleasing myself. The one thing that my parents, my family and my friends wanted was for me to take care of myself and to become independent! The only real kind of peace of mind I could give them was to take control of my own life and yet I was going about it all the wrong way.

So A BIG KUDOS TO DAVE RAMSEY AND THE TOTAL MONEY MAKEOVER AND ALL MY FRIENDS IN THE CHATROOM THERE! For making me understand and realize what I need to do to be able to finally get control over my life while at the same time pleasing myself, my kids, my family and my friends and most importantly GOD!!!!