Day Thirty-Seven, Planning a Party!

Today I was awoken by the phone ringing...I didn't answer it, however, when the same person called right back, I decided it was probably important and answered it in bed.  It was the person who in the very beginning of my blog was having a lot of financial difficultly but left half of her money for the week as a tip for the chamber maid...she trusted that God would continue to provide, well, He sure did!

She excitedly explained to me that she got a certified letter today, thinking it was a serious past due bill, she was not excited to open it.  Come to find out, it was a check for almost $7,000!  The letter explained that when she refinanced her mortgage there wasn't a disclosure of certain fees and after careful review of the account, they needed to refund her that money.  She was floored, "Can you believe this?" she kept asking me.  "Yes, of course, God provides!" I replied.  We both praised the Lord for his greatness and decided the best way to stretch every dollar to get her in a better financial position.  The first thing I recommended was putting $1000 in an emergency fund.  When your budget it tight, a broken appliance, a car repair, medical bill can throw you completely off for weeks to come.  I helped her figure out where was best to put the money and she said, "I'm going to pay off the stuff keeping me up at night..."  And I agree wholeheartedly, that is the way to go!

This was such a blessing to me and yet another testimony to God's willingness to solve our problems if we just hand them over to Him.  He is wonderful!  I spent a lot of the day cleaning up my desk, and getting papers in order.  I also ordered my free credit report.  Did you know that you are entitled to a free credit report from each of the three agencies once a year?  If there is something on your report that is not true, it can harshly affect interest rates and insurance premiums!  Believe it or not, 80% of credit reports have a mistake on them.  I highly recommend that you go to "www.annualcreditreport.com" and get yours.  This one is truly free...you don't need to sign up for anything, no credit cards required.  If you have already gotten your free credit report it will tell you and not allow you to do it again.  I was pleasantly surprised to find no mistakes on the one I printed out and reviewed...I will be doing my other two in the coming months.  After this, I slept the afternoon away until dinner time.

Dakota and I had set up a date after dinner to plan his birthday party.  We are a little last minute since his birthday is the 17th but I've just been too ill to do anything.  I explained to him what his birthday budget was and he started getting creative about themes, games, etc.  He decided he wanted a "Lego Party" and he wanted to invite four of his very best friends.  I jotted down all his ideas on paper and we decided to find some printable invitations online.  When searching, we found that the Lego Store actually has it's own party package.  The kids go into the store and have a scavenger hunt, build a lego creation as a team, and then they each get a lego kit as a gift.  I showed it to Dakota and the party package happened to be the exact amount of our budget!  He was thrilled and we called them and booked his party.

He is having his party the Friday before his birthday which falls in the middle of the week, so we decided we would do his cake with just the family on the real date of his birth and he's very happy with this plan.  On Saturday, he is going with his Tata and Nana on a long train ride for his present from them.  He is very excited!