Because you saved, you shall receive

Do you remember the very last time you saved up your money for something you really wanted? I am talking a true saving--putting a few dollars away each week, and it took what it seemed like forever. Not credit cards, not debit cards, not one of those nothing down and you pay no interests deals. Well, I don't. I was not a spoiled brat growing up--just one of those whose parents paid for everything. You may call it lucky, but I call it unfortunately-misguided. To show that they loved me (or to wash away their guilt for working so much,) my parents (mainly my mother) would give me cash (she called it "allowance," although when money ran out, she would "let me borrow" next month's amount.) whenever she felt I needed money. Being so financially immature, that would be every few weeks. I never truly understood how to manage money; I never had to.

Then I got married. For the past five years, with my wonderful husband's help, I had a brand new perspective on managing what we have. The first year we cut up all our credit cards (and paid off all the remaining balances on each card we had,) the next two years we paid off our car (yes, one car,) and spent (or tried to) less than what we earned. It was not, and it still is not an easy process. From where I came from, I learned to get anything and everything the moment I saw it. Waiting for it was foreign to me, let alone saving up for it. With the birth of Caleb and Abigail came an even more difficult decision: we had to downsize our lifestyle even more because I would not be working anymore. That meant we had four people in the house, with only one person's salary. With God's blessing, we are doing it. Craigslist became our furniture store. Ebay became our baby Gap. We have enough to get by, but not enough to feed my obsession with a new camera. With two children growing at the speed of weeds growing in a backyard, I passionally desire to photograph every moment of their young lives. I often see my friends pulling out their nice, fancy, even expensive cameras, and secretly wished and prayed one day I may own one of those, too.

A few weeks ago I had an idea. If I were to save a little bit of money a week, by certain time this year, I would probably have some money to feed this obsession of mine. Although the idea of saving up only a few dollars a week really discouraged me (the old me was telling me that we can pull some money from our checking account right now. Why wait?) I decided to bite my tongue and do it. Few weeks passed, I was diligently, consistently saving up. It felt like the tortoise racing. The process was so slow that I almost lost my vision of the finish line. But the tortoise wins. I've reached the finished line. This past week I proudly ordered my brand new camera through Amazon. For the first time since we got married, I got to, no, we got to buy a brand new gadget! The excitement is equivelent to a child being told she can have her weekly ice cream treat only after today's dinner, and after a long battle, a long battle, she finally recieves the ice cream she was promised for.

Because you saved, you shall receive--one of the most valueable lessons learned--and because of it, my fruit shall taste extra sweet, oh, around this time next week.