Introducing Jessica
Hello BeingFrugal readers! I look forward to getting to know you in our journey here.
By way of introduction, I’ll tell you a little about myself, my frugal living story, and my family’s goals with money.
I hope that you’ll leave comments on your favorite topics to read here—perhaps I can throw another perspective into the mix? I’ll put my quick and easy version here, but you can also follow the early steps of our family’s money story at www.thepennywisefamily.com or my posts on DebtKid.com.
Who am I anyway?
I confess—I still ask myself that question every day! I’m a mom and wife, and a small business owner. Dishwasher, Taxi Driver, missionary. You get the idea, whatever I need to be. Our family includes a couple of cats and our two daughters, ages 12 and five, who we adopted as older children—the oldest when she was seven and the youngest when she was three years old when they joined our family. We joke that adopting older children is like “extreme parenting.” The rewards are many, but we don’t look like your typical family. We wouldn’t change a thing about our family. It is perfect!
We live just outside the Seattle area and stay busy in our community, gardening, volunteering with our church, and schooling our kids at home via Internet academy. When I have the time and money, I play ice hockey, but I haven’t been on a team in two years due to a back injury. Our youngest daughter was born with a serious medical condition requiring lots of medical appointments, so schooling at home helps us to attend all of those without getting behind in school.
My husband has a good job working for the state government. He is the best husband/dad one could ever hope to have!
Why so frugal?
Frugal wasn’t our first choice. We started off with high-profile jobs and good incomes. I worked in companies with serious “consumer cultures” and we were active in politics. I come from a family that wasn’t frugal, but my husband’s family was.
Right after we brought our youngest daughter home from Ethiopia, I was laid off from my job. We landed with a heap of adoption loans, and other consumer debt, and suddenly our household income was cut in half. We were also faced with the huge commitment of meeting our ill child’s needs and medical bills.
We decided to make a 100% lifestyle change. We launched our business from home, and started slashing lifestyle like crazy. Serious budget triage (more on that next) followed by some serious hustling to get cash in the door.
Next month, we’ll be debt free, and we’ll have paid off $75,000 in five years.
What is the system?
We’ve been using the Dave Ramsey program from My Total Money Makeover/Financial Peace University for the past two years. We’ve gotten the best results from this system.
Then what?
We’ll maintain the lifestyle change. We actually like it. We’ll live smaller, give more, and we’ll travel. Not just any kind of travel. We hope to do service travel. We have a trip planned to East Africa later this year, where our whole family will be involved in building water purification systems and a school for a community in South Sudan. We set the goal to pay off our condo in the next five years, enabling us to serve even more people and communities, and giving us the ability to cash flow our oldest daughter’s college tuition.
Best of all, we live with peace of mind, with financial security. As a result, our health is better, our marriage is stronger, and we are able to focus on things that truly matter—like parenting, and nurturing relationships that are important to us.
Ok, I’ve spilled my guts. Blogging will feel so much less lonely when I hear from you, the readers! What are your goals? Why are you here? What do you hope to learn from us? Let me know, and I promise, we’ll deliver!
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Author
By Jessica Ward, on May 11, 2011
Jessica Ward is a full-time writer and adoptive mom to two wonderful children. She writes to support her parenting/adopting habit. For frugal family tips see The PennyWise Family or @jessc098 and my google+ profile.
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Disclaimer and Legal Mumbo Jumbo
I'm just an average mom, trying to live a frugal life and get out of debt. I write about things that have (and haven't) worked to improve my family's financial situation. What works for me may or may not work for you, and you should always consult a financial advisor before making important financial decisions.
In accordance with FTC guidelines, I state that I have a financial relationship with companies mentioned in this website. This may include receiving access to free products and services for product and service reviews and giveaways.
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I have heard about David Ramsey’s book a few times and am thinking that I should get myself a copy.
Welcome, Jessica! I’m heading over to your site to get to know you a little more… I look forward to reading you!
Great comments! Congrats on Tamra on being debt-free and the new baby! Karyn! Do get the book! You won’t regret it! (hint, don’t buy the audiobook–it doesn’t come with all of the cool forms in the back). Damsel, The Pennywise Family is due for some new content. I’ll be working on that this week–I’ve neglected it for the past year or so as I worked to build my small business. The business is launched now, but in a slow time, so I do think it’s time to get back to it. :)
Hi Jessica! Nice to meet you! My husband and I are due with our first child. We are 40, have a mortgaged home in the suburbs of LA, both have jobs in corp America, and have a wonderful network of family & our church community. A few years ago we went through Dave Ramsey’s CD’s & live debt free except for our mortgage. Also over the past 2 years we’be worked on lowering our daily overhead costs in general & through energy efficiency improvements ie. Solar Panels, appliances, insulation. With the coming of our daughter we are trying to figure out how if I stay at work we will care for our child consistent with our values or if I stay home, the larger portion of our income how we will manage.
Mary, agreed! Stewardship is an oft-forgotten tenet of Christianity, which manifests itself (at least in my house) in frugality. :) Also, the more I find we want to increase our family size (currently just 2 kids, but hoping to adopt more one day), the more it seems that we discover we have to stretch what we have in order to make it happen. (Not just the cost of adding another member to the household, but also we have to prepare for years in order to cover adoption fees, etc).
Welcome, Jessica! I’m looking forward to reading your story. When I started blogging I said I was joining the ranks of “Frugal Christian Mamas”, so I like the fact that you will be writing about frugality as well as faith and family.
Jessica,
I am looking forward to getting to know you and learning from you. My husband and I have been living a frugal and better organized lifestyle for nearly four years, and in that time we have met and overcome more than a few challenges. I am always looking for new ideas on frugality, so I am excited to meet you.
Jessica,
Looking forward to your blog posts. We are just 5 months into our lifestyle shift, but have already had some small victories (still have a long way to go). I hope to hear more about your experience. We have one adopted daughter and are adopting again (expect to travel in July). Our newest daughter will be 9 so I would love to hear about your experiences as she adjusted to her new home.
Oh Christy, congrats!! We have a kiddo from Ethiopia and one from the USA. Both our kids came home at older ages, 7 and 3 years old. Our “adoption blog” is at http://www.jessc098.blogspot.com. It’s not private, but not in search engines because we talk pretty openly about kids’ special needs (our oldest has been abused, and had multiple placements, our youngest was born with HIV), mostly as a resource for other adoptive families. Where are you traveling to? We’re headed back to Ethiopia and Sudan in the winter, though not adoption travel this time.
Jessica, thanks for sharing your story. I am happy for you. One of my nieces intended to adopt internationally but could not because she used to have seizures and adoption treaties exclude applicants with a history of seizures. Several years later and only after consulting with experts in several fields and a review of the prescriptions she’d had to take, the docs told her that she could safely have a child. I still believe that an overseas child was needlessly denied a loving home. As for Dave Ramsey’s materials and shows, much of what he says makes some sense but he tends to blame consumers without carefully examining the roles of the banks, debt collectors, and credit reporting agencies in creating the problems. Collection agency harassment destroys many marriages and families.
Hi Jessica,
We are adopting from India and our last adoption was from India as well. We also have 2 biological children so we will definitely have a full house :-)
I briefly went to your adoption blog and marked it as a favorite so that I can go back and look at your adoption story.
Look forward to hearing more from you.
Hi Jessica -
Congratulations on the new gig – from reading your bio it sounds like you have a lot of experience and helpful knowledge to pass along. The only thing that I found a bit off-putting, was the constant reference to your adopted family. Being an adopted child myself, I think its wonderful that you are able and willing to offer not one, but two children a better quality of living in a loving home than they otherwise might not be able to have.
From reading your bio it seems as though both you and your husband had steady jobs that paid well enough to live a comfortable lifestyle, but that changed when you adopted your two children, specifically your youngest who faces health issues that require additional attention and money. For the rest of the post, nearly every paragraph reminds us that the additional money your children require (medical bills, adoption fees) has forced you to be frugal.
I appreciate that my parents adopted me, and I know that adoption is costly and often requires a lifestyle change, but I would be hurt if I came across a blog she posted essentially pinning their frugal lifestyle as a direct result of adopting me. I don’t think for a minute that my parents – (or Sandra Bullock, Angelina Jolie, my aunt, or neighbor for that matter) – adopted to make themselves look good, but I kind of got the impression after reading your post that you were looking for some sort of pat on the back or medal. People adopt children everyday, but they don’t center a blog around it. Again, I don’t discredit your decision and subsequent sacrifice, but I also hope that people who adopt children do it for no recognation at all, not for a tax credit or frugal excuse.