Bullet Journal February Overview

I thought now would be a good time to make an update post about my bullet journal. I realized that making a post every week is a little bit of overkill. So unless I add anything super special that I'm excited about, I will only make a short post each month so that you can see any new things I have added.

I think it will be fun to make a memories page each month! We had a great first month of 2017, Josh got promoted to full time at his job, and we spent time with the staff from our church in Arkansas. It has been so fun getting to know the other staff member's families and making more connections so that we can really feel like Pittsburg is home. January also marked the beginning of my last semester of college and I'm happy I was able to end the month with all A's! I also started my first bullet journal and participated in the #planwithmechallenge on Instagram. 

I know my mom really likes these wreaths, I tried to make it a Valentine's theme but it kind of turned out more Christmasy. The little hearts are fun though and I like the bright green leaves with light pink berries. 

February has been a crazy busy month!! Oh my gosh, I have had so much going on. We've been doing well on our goals. We're still waiting to hear back from the bank about being pre-approved for a loan but we do have a few houses that we really like!

I've also started journaling a little bit about what I'm reading in scripture. I'm going through Proverbs on my own, which is taking forever because I'm not doing to well at reading consistently. I'm enjoying Proverbs because most of the things are conceptually easy to understand but really difficult to apply to life. Not gossiping is hard, and not starting quarrels is harder for me, and let's not even talk about not eating too many sweets...

My weekly spread still looks the same. This week while I was planning for next week I was feeling the grays and blues. I'm so thankful that next week is not look as crazy as last week! 

This is a fun new page I added! I told Josh I want to watch The Proposal soon because he's never seen it. So I thought, hmmmm, I need a movie page in my bullet journal to keep track of movies I need to watch! I like how this turned out, except for the crazy large "V", that's a little weird. 

That's it for February, but I will be sure to update you all in March! I'll be participating in the #planwithmechallenge again next month so I might have some new fun pages to share, we'll see! 

How to Stay Motivated About Sticking to Your Budget

Photo by Green Chameleon

One of the hardest parts about having a budget is actually sticking to it and staying motivated about using it. Budgets can feel extremely restrictive, making it hard to want to follow through on the limits you set for yourself. Self-control is never an easy thing but I'm going to share with you 5 tips that have helped Josh and I stay consistent and relatively excited about our budget.

1. Make Your Own Budget Format

Josh and I have created our own spreadsheet through Google Sheets to track our expenses in a month. There is just something helpful about creating a system that works well just for you. For us it creates ownership, we've put effort into a system that helps us track our spending, income and goals so that helps us put it to good use instead of wasting it. We can also change it any time we want, fix the system if part of it doesn't work well for us. Specifically we use Google Sheets because we can both access it on our own computers or on any computer where we can log in to our Google account.  I have plans to make a tutorial post that might help those of you who struggle with Google Sheets.

2. Set Financial Goals

Financial goals are so helpful. We really like Dave Ramsey’s 7 Baby Steps. They aren’t steps that can be completed in one day, they take some effort and perseverance because some might take a long time and the length may be frustrating. But they are logical and we like that we didn't have to think them up ourselves. Also, Dave Ramsey's website has a lot of helpful resources on various topics. Right now, Josh and I are working on Baby Step #2 which is paying off all short-term debt. We're hoping that we get our debt under control before we have any little mouths to feed (I've heard little mouths can be quite expensive). 

3. Give Yourself Rewards

I am so excited and motivated to pay off debt! You want to know why? Josh and I have a series of rewards for completing that goal. For Josh, we agreed he can save up for a truck after we pay off the debt. He sold is old truck in 2015 and I think he misses it almost every day. It's a great motivation for him. We also want to go on a vacation together, maybe go overseas and do mission work and travel in the US. We have a number of rewards for after we are finished paying our debt that I'm so excited for. Having rewards makes me want to save more and not spend as much so that we can continue paying off that debt. Now obviously things still get in the way, like we have to find a place to live this year and we've decided to buy a house that's a big expense that we're saving for instead of paying off debt right now. And that's okay!

4. Use an Online Tracker 
We like to use an online tracker, Mint, that is connected to our bank account, loan accounts, our credit card (not Dave Ramsey friendly, but necessary if you want to rent a car unfortunately), and even property we own. This is helpful for us because we can go to one place to monitor all of our accounts. Not only that but we're able to track all of our expenses and categorize them which is not something you can do through your regular online bank account. Mint is similar to Every Dollar through Dave Ramsey but we found Mint first and like that we can access every function of the site for free. 

5. Be Flexible and Give Yourself Some Grace
You are not going to be perfect at sticking to your budget if you have never had one before. That's just reality. There are two big reasons for this. One, you aren't used to tracking your money or limiting what you buy and this is something that has to be practiced. Telling yourself no is not an easy task. Two, you might create some budget constraints that aren't achievable or realize that you thought would spend more than you actually do. My advice is to go with your budget for three months and then look at the averages of each category. This will help you create a more accurate budget. Ultimately realize: one, that you aren't a perfect person and two, sometimes life doesn't go as we expect. 

I hope these tips will keep you motivated to use your budget and stick to it! Budgeting will help you accomplish financial goals, help you to see what you spend your money on and help you make decisions on what to buy. For spenders this is a great step on the way to becoming a saver! 

Bullet Journal January Overview

I promised my Instagram followers a post about my bullet journal set up for the new year and here it is. My awesome in-laws gave me the supplies I wanted to start my first bullet journal, a notebook, some fancy pens and hi-lighters. I mentioned in my first blog post that I had been using an old graph paper notebook to get the itch out of my fingers. But for Christmas, I really wanted to start a pretty journal that I could blog about for 2017. So in this post I will be sharing the pages that I have designed so far this year. I might make a post next week if the Plan With Me Challenge on Instagram causes me to make more than what I've designed so far. If there aren't many new pages, I'll just keep those posts limited to my Instagram. 

So the first design is the index which is a throw to the man who created the the bullet journal and you can read more about that here. Basically the index is just that, it's simply a table of contents to help the user find information. Mine is pretty basic, like many of my pages. I'm not much of an artist but I'm sure using this kind of planner will help me to get better. 

Next, is the key and my first wreath that I'm pretty proud of. I'm glad it's 2017, a new year with new goals and exciting things to come. 

I've been reading Proverbs the past few weeks and I knew that before I started the future goals section of this journal I should make sure that I keep my mind focused on God's sovereignty. He has the power to interfere with my plans and I know those plans will be good but they might mean that mine have to change. So I included Proverbs 16:3 knowing that God alone will be able to establish my plans, He is faithful and I can be joyful no matter how much those plans change. On page 5 are our 10 year goals, now to be honest there are some goals that are not listed here yet such as future babies, I just felt that the whole world didn't need to know our timeline for that. The ones written in unreadable light gray (sorry) are for me to get a promotion at my first big girl job someday, and to have a 10 year anniversary honeymoon in Paris (a girl can dream, right?). 

Next up is our 3 year plan, we took our 10 year goals and made them into a plan that was a little easier to look at a strategize for. This 3 year plan definitely turned into a 5 year plan do to the big goals we have later on that will take more time to complete. So 2017 will be a big year but we'll see how the future changes for next year! I got the idea from a girl on Instagram whose handwriting is much better than mine, you can find her here.

So in creating the 2017 future log, I made a MAJOR oops. I somehow though May only had 30 days, so I got all the way to December without realizing it. You'll notice little arrows before the first of the month starting in June, that's to remind myself to move all of it over. I'm trying to not let this bother me too much but it was definitely frustrating. I haven't included everyone's birthday yet, so don't let it bother you if you don't see yours on there.

Next are the goals for 2017 and a strategy we have for completing them. My hope is that certain things move a little bit faster but this timeline will be helpful for making monthly goals as the year moves along.

So when I first started designing I was sort of obsessed with wreaths, as you can see I have already made two but don't worry my third is next. I like this one too! I liked my handwriting here too!

Now we're getting into January's planning, first there is the month with goals, next come the weekly spreads which I love and then the other planning I do throughout the week.

Lastly, there are collections. Collections are just lists of various things to keep track of. These will be the last pictures of the post. Thanks for looking into my bullet journal, I promise I will improve my picture quality on the next bullet journal post. I'm still learning how to edit and some of these did not turn out how I wanted. 

That's the end!

My supplies:

Moleskine Notebook with Dotted Pages 
Staedtler Triplus Fineliner Pens, 20 count pack 
Zebra Midliners, Mild Calm colors, 5 count pack 

Should I Get Married in College?

Photo by Amy Li 

So I got married in August but believe it or not last December I told my husband I wouldn't marry him. Why would I say that you ask? Well, in complete honesty, I simply had no interest in being married during my senior year of college. Unfortunately for me, Josh is a stubborn man and he asked this question that I hate: why? It's a question that I have trouble answering logically now because I can't remember why I didn't want to get married. I think I wanted to be free or I was afraid of losing focus on my studies. I'm not really sure anymore so I thought I would ask a friend who is dating what she thinks about being married in college. In this post, I'll try to logically respond to her thoughts and offer a final suggestion that I hope answers this question: should I get married in college?

Loss of Freedom
This is something I remember being very scary for me when I told Josh in April that if his internships fell through I was no longer opposed to being married. I'm an only child so I highly value my independence, I like to have my own schedule and get things finished at my own pace. I knew when I got married I wouldn't have that independence anymore. My life would be tied with him and I would have to give him parts of my schedule, do things on his timeline sometimes. The idea of my life being interwoven so intimately with someone else made me anxious. In my mind I wanted to finish out school with my own agenda. But as I prayed about it I realized that it didn't matter when I got married, joining my life with someone else would still be hard regardless of timing. Either I'd learn how to juggle our schedules with school or I'd learn to do it with work. It wouldn't be any different.

Too Expensive
Personally, this one wasn't really a fear of mine. I worried a little but when I thought about it I realized that this wasn't actually true. I'll offer this thought, how are you doing financially as individuals? If both of you can afford rent, utilities, car insurance, tuition, etc. separately, why does getting married make everything magically more expensive? The truth is, it will probably be cheaper for you to get married and live together while going to school. I'll use my husband and I as an example. When we talked about getting married last April we brought up a few wedding date scenarios, we could get married at the end of the summer or we could get married in December. My husband was pretty opposed to the idea of December mainly because of the cost. Rent where we live right now is $500 a month and we have roommates, if I had lived on my own this semester waiting for our December wedding, my rent would be $300 because I had roommates already. But Josh would have had to find an apartment of his own which in our town could be around $600 for a one bedroom place. We decided that it was kind of ridiculous for us to spend almost twice as much living separately and still claim that it was a cheaper option.

That's just one sample of the costs of living but being married can also affect your financial aid eligibility and if you're in my situation having a husband who works while I finish school is actually quite nice. I'm not nearly as worried about my finances because I know Josh is working longer hours than I am and getting paid more for the work that he does. Now, for some people the parent thing might come into this picture which I'll address later. I'll add this to close this section, if either you or your significant other is doing poorly financially, that is a conversation that needs to be had before you get engaged. Don't hide money troubles from the person you love especially if you intend to combine money later on. This is a subject where the two of you need to be on the same page. Josh and I don't fight nearly as much as we did when we were dating but when we do fight in marriage it is almost always about money. Be on the same page, it will start you off on a peaceful path.

Losing Focus on School 
This was probably the thing I was worried about most. My goal for senior year was to get all A's and I was really afraid that being married would distract me from that goal. However I think that eventually I realized that Josh actually helps me focus and be more productive. He encourages me and calls me out when I'm distracted and not working diligently. While we were dating I felt a lot of stress over balancing our relationship and working hard on school. Because we didn't live together, the want to hang out with him made me rush through my work or put it off to spend time with him instead. Marriage is a totally different and better situation for my productivity. Josh likes it when the house is clean so he helps with dishes and laundry which lessens my stress to accomplish those tasks and work on school. He also asks me to get my work done before we do something fun and some nights he would even stay up late with me this last semester so that I had company while finishing homework or studying.

I wish I could tell you that I accomplished my goal but I didn't and I don't think it was because I got married. If we hadn't gotten married in August, it might've been a December wedding which would have meant I was wedding planning during my hardest semester of school. Or Josh could've gotten an internship in Dallas, which would have meant trying to maintain a long distance relationship. Either option would have been more stressful than living with my best friend and encourager. He kept me calm when school was extremely stressful and encouraged me. He was consistent to remind me of my worth and how hard I had worked even when I didn't reach my goal. But there is next semester and I can restart my goal and I can use the study and organizational tools I've been working on again and hope for the best. This blog post explains the school thing really well and even some other things that I have mentioned. Ultimately marriage brings a lot of responsibility to my life. Doing well in school is something that will affect my future and now Josh's as well.

The Opinions of Your Parents
This was not an issue that I faced in particular but I know it's something that many face and I think it needs to be addressed. There are plenty of things that parents could have concerns about in regards to you being engaged and getting married in college. These could be concerns about your emotional maturity, your financial stability, losing focus on school etc. I would encourage you to have these conversations with your parents because a good relationship with your parents is important and valuable. Your parents likely will be able to give you wise advice and maybe offer some thoughts that you had not considered, listen to them and if you disagree, do so respectfully.

Ultimately you are an adult (if you're 18 or older) and this decision is between you and your future spouse, it is up to you to decide if you can handle the consequences that might occur if your parents don't approve of your final decision. For some of you this might mean having to take on more expenses that you haven't been covering on your own. This is definitely something to consider. My one caution in this area, is to take parent concern with a grain of salt, some parents are just scared that their baby is growing up and that is not a valid reason to keep you from getting married. Be respectful of your parents but be cautious about their concerns. If you believe the best thing for you to do is to get married, hopefully you have parents like mine who are supportive, love you, and trust your judgement. This might also be a good time to talk to your parents, if they aren't extremely supportive, about the role they will have in your decisions once you graduate or once you are married. I've left out one important part of this decision and that is God. Three people make the decision to get married: you, your love, and God. God trumps parents, they love you and want the best for you, but if it's God's will for you to be married college, you will be married in college. Your fears, your parent's fears, your significant other's fears, if you're making them read this, none of it can stop the will of God. And that, my friends, is a very good thing.

Not Being Able to Live with Friends
This is definitely more of an issue for girls I think. Us girls love our girl time, in my case, Josh and I decided to get married so late that I get to have girl time with our roommates a lot and that is something I am thankful for. However, I promise you ladies, as soon as you're living with your best friend and married, having girl time won't be as big of a priority in your life, it's just how life works. I love my roommates, but I'm so excited to have my own home with Josh. This, I think, is part of growing up. I love that I have been able to hang out with my married friends and their husbands the past few months and that I've had some of my unmarried friends over for dinner. Living with your friends is a time that should be treasured but I think once you're married, you'll realize that this is just another moment in your life where you'll learn to make time for the things and people that are a priority to you. If not in college, you'll hopefully get married to your special person soon and you won't live with your friends and I promise you, living with your husband will be wonderful.

One More Thing To Do 
Finally, my very transparent friend that I dearly love shared this final thought. And here's what I have to say to this: college is busy and you have a lot going on with work, classes, homework and friends, it feels even more busy because you have this person that you love and you want to spend time with them too. But marriage is just one more thing to do. There is a wedding, a honeymoon, moving in together, finding a place to live. It's actually more than just one thing on top of all the other stuff you have to do in your life. And that is stressful...or seems so anyway. My thought on this is that it doesn't have to be, stress and worry like this depend on your attitude about them. If you think something will be stressful and you act like it, that thing will automatically be stressful. My wedding planning had elements that were stressful but if it got too stressful I just deemed it unimportant. And actually the short engagement really contributed to the peaceful atmosphere. My advice is to keep your engagement around 6 months or less and if you really feel its necessary, please don't do more than a year. And it does feel like one more thing to do, because it is a big one more thing to do. I'd encourage you to pray about it, if this is your only reason left, are you willing to do this one more thing to honor God and the person that you love?

Final Thoughts
Marriage is a big deal and by writing this post I am not saying that this timeline is for everyone. If you have these fears, they are valid. This post is mainly for those who are thinking about getting married in college and these are the thoughts that I have about the fears and concerns that I had and that people I know have. If you are struggling with these fears, think of this post as the devil's advocate approach to all of the reasons that you have come up with. Maybe this post encourages you not to get married, if that's the decision you come to, congratulations for thinking it through and being mature. If this post encourages you to do the opposite and get married, congratulations that's so exciting and I wish you the best for your marriage (also let me know because I'd love to be praying for you and your love).

Ultimately, my hope and prayer is that this post would encourage you to honor and obey God. If in the back of your mind you think that marrying this person would not honor Him because the person you love is not a Christian (see 2 Corinthians 6:14 because it's not a good plan to even date someone who doesn't love the Lord) or  maybe neither of you is financially stable. Then I hope that this post made you consider those things and decide to obey. On the other hand, if in the back of your mind you think that God will be more honored by your marriage because you're struggling to stay pure (see 1 Corinthians 7) or all of the reasons you thought were true seem kind of silly after reading this, then I hope you decide to obey. For me, by seeking wisdom through prayer, I reversed my answer to Josh and I told him that I was open to whatever plan God had for our lives. When I told Josh I would marry him if his internships fell through, I didn't know if they would but I knew telling him was the right thing. I decided to trust God and obey Him, knowing that if the plan was to live in a small town in Kansas so Josh could serve our church and the teenagers near it, he would be faithful and I could be joyful in that. And you know what? He is faithful and the fears that I had are small in comparison to the joy that I feel knowing that I get to love Josh and watch Him serve God for my whole life starting sooner than I thought and so small compared to the peace that came when I chose to obey God and trust Him.

So, dear reader, my prayer is that you would trust and obey, no matter the outcome. Listen to God, above the noise of your parents who don't want you to get married or your love who is trying to convince you when you know it's not right yet or your friends who are begging you to live with them one more year or even the people at church who think marriage is the right thing for everyone right now. Honor God and obey Him, He will work the rest out. And that is not a promise that your decision will come without consequences but my prayer is that you will follow God's command even if you know that consequences will come.

If you would like to talk through this with me, even if we are not real life friends, my email is on my About Me page and I would love to pray with you and listen to your concerns or questions.

Grace and peace to you!

PS: Thanks to my awesome friend who shared her thoughts with me knowing that I would share them on the internet! I'm thankful for your transparency and I admire the way you are thinking through all of these things and seeking the Lord about the timing and possibility of your future marriage.

The First Post

Photo by Alisa Anton 

So this is a little nerve-wracking. But today I'm sitting in Starbucks and I'm trying to write my first blog post. I've finally found some free time to come up to Starbucks to read the first Harry Potter (don't worry, I've already read it a few times), work on the blog a bit and maybe touch some of my end of semester homework. I'm drinking some delicious mint tea and I'm not really sure where to begin this post but the more I write I'm finding my niche. So I guess I'll just start out by telling you a little bit about what this blog will be focused on. To be honest, I'm not exactly sure what kinds of content will show up here but something you should know about me is that I'm interested in a lot of different things right now that I hope to blog about. 

Jesus. Marriage. Bullet Journaling. Travel. Personal Finance. 

I'm a Christian, I've been a follower of Jesus since I was nine years old. But it wasn't till about 13 or 14 when I truly began following Him. When I started college I began to grow a lot in my faith and got involved in Campus Ministry. Last year, I found my current church, The Grove, and I've grown even more. Josh and I encountered some hard decisions last year and I think that time taught us to have a love for God's Word. I'm sure that will come through on this blog at different points of my life.

Since I just got married in August, I'm super interested in my marriage. I'm learning so much about my husband, Josh, and it really is a lot of fun. It's also a lot of work and it amazes me how one person can teach me so much about myself and about my own faults. Marriage is much different than dating and that is a really good thing. So I'm sure long posts are to come about all the wife life and maybe even some posts about what I learned when we were dating and some things from being single too.

Another thing that's on my mind a lot is bullet journaling. I first heard about bullet journaling on Pinterest (I love Pinterest) and it caught my attention because I've never found a perfect planner and by bullet journaling, I can make my own. I've been bullet journaling in my graph paper notebook for now but I'm hoping to soon invest in a nice notebook and some fancy pens and highlighters. I have a lot of plans for my journal, I plan to start sharing posts about it in January.

I also hope that I can share some of our traveling adventures with you as well! Josh and I have plans to travel in the future and I plan to write about them here. "Live. Laugh. Lowe." was an idea I came up with while studying abroad in Taiwan (you can read more about that adventure on my About Me page). My first major is International Business so I hope that this blog can travel the world and that I can share what I learn about new cultures with you.

Finally, I've become interested in personal finance and I like to talk about money probably because my second major is Finance and my professors like to scare us by talking about retirement. As a 21-year-old, newlywed and college student, money is definitely on the low side. Josh and I are dealing with paying student loans, rent, taking on new responsibilities that our parents used to cover, and we're going to try to buy a house this year. We're big fans of Dave Ramsey and plan to make decisions that will get us to a debt free life pretty quickly.  I'll be sharing various plans that we have and maybe even share elements of our budget and planning that we do each month. Ultimately Josh and I want to be people who give, of our time and our money, because we believe that both are given to us by God.

Thanks so much for reading, I'm working on content for each of these subjects and hope to upload them soon!

Grace and peace to you!