Let's Furnish An Entire House For $1000!!!

We are moving AGAIN! I know we just moved 4 months ago, but we are about to move again :-) Happily we are only moving 5 miles away, so emotionally we do not have to put our 3, 4, and 1 year old through changing churches, friends, family, etc... We are moving houses. WHY?

Well, my husband's job has changed and so we have to move out of this rental that his company is paying for, since he will not be with this company anymore. He has a great job and we are super blessed, so that makes moving a little easier. Also remember we moved here from Jacksonville Fl. and everything is still in Jacksonville. We also decided that is where all of our stuff is going to stay :-) WHAT?

This is where my title comes from. I have to give you a little background first to tell you how I got to this insane $1000 budget!

A few weeks ago we started Financial Peace University with Dave Ramsey. It is a 3 month class we are taking at a church in our neighborhood. It is kicking our tails. SOOOO... good! Dave Ramsey encourages you to NEVER borrow money from anyone and to live DEBT FREE!

Ten years ago when my husband and I got married, we were stupid :-) Well, we weren't stupid to get married, we were stupid in our thinking about money. We decided we NEEDED to furnish our home with all new furniture. SO, we did! Yes, we believed the lie of "Buy Now", "Pay Later", "NO Interest." Right! Well, the furniture is paid for, but how stupid were we to believe the "no interest" lie. As if a furniture company is really going to "give" their stuff away :-) So we paid a lot more than we should have.

So, we are running hard and fast after our student loans, cars, and second mortgage debt. We really desire to not be "normal" anymore. We want to send our 3 children to school without student loans and teach them to buy their first car with cash! So fun! So, since we are budgeting down to the penny, we really do not have "extra" money to buy new furniture for our next rental house. (we are choosing to rent until we are out of debt) Remember we have a mortgage in Fl. already, and we are about to have no furniture when we move out of this fully furnished rental on July 31st.

We desire to use our home in Fl. for ministry and Lord willing, to profit. The way we can do that is by renting it fully furnished. So, we have a beautiful cozy townhouse in Fl. that is available in Oct. for you :-) There is a sweet family renting it now until Oct. I have been SO delighted to hear how they love it, this really encourages us to know we made the right decision.

A friend recently asked me why I didn't furnish the townhouse in FL. for the $1000 and bring everything we love here? Honestly, I believe this is all about God changing my heart to honor Him with everything. I want others to enjoy the beauty there and trust God to provide new things here, which will be a constant reminder of our focus to honor Him with our finances.

SO, I have given myself $1000 to try and get only the things I thought we would need for our home. Here is my list: 3 Beds, 5 dressers, Table and chairs, couch, love seat, chair, 4 side tables, and a desk to get organized :-)

I can't wait to share with you how God has provided all of these things and more! Next post I will break down where my money went and show you how I was able to do this. Not only is our new house here in NC fully furnished, but I even had money to buy some beautiful fabrics to cover some of our "not so pretty" new furniture :-)