What do you do when everyday life happens while you’re on the road to debt freedom? Your budget is made, you’ve already had to readjust it due to an unforeseen emergency (a real one this time) and now you’re ready to execute. But in the midst of all that, your coworker experiences a death in the family. Now that wasn’t on my budget.
I don’t know about you but where I’m from, it’s common practice that you give to the person “experiencing the loss” during this time. I don’t mind giving and I want to give but right now it’s not reasonable to try to adjust an already to the limit budget that for all intents and purposes had been executed before I was asked to give. In other words, the creditors have been paid and the budget is at zero.
What did I do? I signed the card and explained to the person taking up the money that I didn’t have money to give right now. What I was able to give though were words of Encouragement in the card. And since this person had been dealing with the reality of a loss for months beforehand, I’d been praying for the person (and family) and allowing the person to talk (vent) their feelings about what they were going through.
This situation taught me that even death may try to take you “off budget”. But it showed me that living a debt free life is the best choice in how I live my life. When Life happens, I want and plan to be able to respond in a life-giving fashion simply because I’m not bound by debt. The choice is yours to make for your own Life.
