So Carlos and I have been married for 3 years, and in that time, we have not always made the best financial decisions. The mistakes we made are common for young adults. Perhaps, we also married a bit too young and after only being together 8 months. We closed on our first home the same week I graduated college. Our first year of marriage, we were learning how communicate, learning to adjust to making joint decisions versus individual decisions, finding a way to run a household and follow a budget that merged both of our money management styles, all the while still really getting to know more about each other. Just before our one year anniversary, we discovered we were expecting.
Too much too soon. Not that any of what we experienced was truly bad or anything; on the contrary, falling in love, getting married, buying your first house, graduating college, having a baby are all very happy and momentous milestones in a person's life. They do, however, all have their own growing pains that go with them. And when you experience all of them within a short amount of time, those growing pains feel like they have a compounding effect on each other. That is when our financial blunders caught up with us.
I did not expect to have a complicated, painful, high-risk pregnancy, but I did. I never considered our debt to substantial, but it was. I missed more than 6 months of work due to pregnancy related health issues and postpartum maternity leave. We could not recover financially and eventually declared Chapter 7 Bankruptcy. Before the pregnancy, we paid all our bills on time including the mortgage, both car payments, both student loan payments, all the credit cards. With just one income, we could only pay the utilities and the mortgage and barely stayed above water with the car payments. We made the mistake of thinking that your health and your income are secure and so long as we could 'afford' the payment then we could have it. Since then, I have found out that we weren't the only ones thinking this. Turns out, people with bad money habits tend to not realize how bad their decisions are until life hits them in the face and they experience the consequences of their decisions. Things had to change.
So we changed. Everything. Things were headed in the right direction. Of course, a financial lifestyle overhaul takes time to get you to where you ought to be, but we were on our way. Just before our bankruptcy was officially discharged, we discovered we were expecting again.
Needless to say, we were scared, and I am still not without some fear even now. I am 34 weeks pregnant and have again had a complicated, painful, high-risk pregnancy. I have been able to continue working this whole time though I am now on reduced hours and probably missed roughly a month of work cumulative between being in the hospital twice, temporary bed-rest, and coming down with the flu. At the beginning, we had only one vehicle, a regular cab truck. We had no idea if we were going to be able to get a different vehicle, but we have. At the beginning, I was kicking myself because I had given away a majority of Jaden's baby stuff to someone much less fortunate than we were. We have to get a different vehicle, how are we going to afford a vehicle and baby stuff? But we have. At the gender/anatomy scan at 21 weeks, the doctor informed us we were having a boy this time. Unless he is going to use pink everything, I wasn't sure how we were going to afford to buy even more. But we have. I believe God has blessed us because we have made every effort to model our new money habits after His financial principles. The real test to see if a person has changed is to put them in a situation where they either revert back to old ways or do the much harder, right thing. We have only been able to prepare as much as we have because of God. Don't get me wrong the test isn't over yet and the real blessing (Nathan) is still to come, but I am so proud of Carlos and I because we're really doing this. Right now, I have mathematically figured out that once Nathan arrives, we can afford for Carlos take off one week and me to take off four weeks. But then again, my math was off about the vehicle and the baby gear. The test isn't over yet, but we come this far successfully with God, and He's good and faithful and will bring us the rest of the way through.
For now, I am so proud that we're really doing this!
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