$13 million and our new money experiment

i have been writing about our financial "plan" from Dave Ramsey & then i wrote a couple posts on our story walking through that plan so far HERE and HERE if you care to read about it.

i'm really thankful that God guided us to jump onto this plan and for the patience and discipline we've had to stick with it!

*Crystal was on Dave's website about 1 year ago and there was a retirement portion that would figure what you will retire with. She plugged in all our numbers (income, bills, home mortgage, etc...) Basically, if we NEVER make more income and everything stays exactly the same and we just stay on pace... when we hit 65 we will have a fully funded (6 month) emergency fund, a home mortgage that is paid for (by the time we're 31 or so), college paid for for 2 kids (which we don't have yet, and $13 MILLION DOLLARS!!!

yeah. that's what i said. $13 million. insane... and that's just in our retirement accounts. and that is an extremely conservative estimate. i'm pretty sure there's a lot i could do with $13 million.

*That's what Dave is talking about when he says "live like no one else, so later you can live like no one else." Maybe we don't go out to eat as much as other peeps and we have a tight budget and all, but $13 million... that's pretty cool.

& i also mentioned our latest little money experiment. Back in April Crystal and i talked and felt like this experiment was something we should do. i felt like it was a "God thing."
We decided that ALL the "unexpected" money we get - which fyi, we don't really get much of that. Unexpected money is like stuff that just shows up out of nowhere. stuff we didn't budget, stuff we didn't work for, gifts, money that turns up.
For example = the $20 bill i literally FOUND on the sidewalk, the $100 i made selling an old foosball table, the $400 that showed up in my account from my real estate company... just extra.

Anyway, we're GIVING HALF of all that unexpected money we get to missions and to the poor (social justice projects). not for everyone, just what we felt like we should do. we're always trying to give MORE and figure out how to budget it... but we're like why don't we just give away 1/2 of unelxpected money we get.

so, we started that in April. we've been doing it for about 2 months now and we have gotten OVER $1,000 that was completely unexpected. that's pretty crazy! $500 per month average so far. i don't remember ever getting that much unexpected money!

i wonder if there's a connection? could be a coincidence? beats me really. we are just really excited to be giving away a ton of extra money + getting the extra money isn't bad either.

(We're excited to be funding some entrepreneurs living in poverty through Hope International and helping some peeps go on mission trips. looking forward to what we can do with any more unexpected money God blesses us with.)