A Timely Reward

I am employed again!!! And thus the McPherson household let out a collective sigh of relief, shout of joy, and prayer of thankfulness! As most of you probably know by now, the interview in New Hampshire went well. In contrast to the opinion of those who really know me, the people at Brookstone determined I was, in fact, sane. :) On my trip I went through 3 interviews (including the EVP of the company, the Director of HR, and the Director of Marketing) and was subjected to 2500 (yes, that many!) questions of assessment. The HR folks then called several of my references and spoke to each of them for over 1/2 hour. Then, thank the blessed heavens, they called to offer me the job. As of tomorrow I am officially a District Manager for Brookstone responsible for 14 stores in Michigan and Pittsburgh. While it is over 30% less money than my previous job which will make us very tight financially, the upside is huge. I like the company, I like my job, I like the person I report to, and I like the product. The company is profitable and growing and they prefer to promote from within. If all is a good as advertised, it should be a great opportunity. It will be very challenging, but I am extremely excited about it. Despite being a retail job other than November and December, it will be primarily 9-5 M-F. I get a company car which means Rissa is no longer stranded. She has only had access to a vehicle for a few months of our more than 11 years of marraige. Now we need to do a very delicate financial dance to make the transition and hopefully all will be well. It truly is amazing how close we seem to come to disaster--we apparently have a sick need to live at the brink starting into the abyss--before being able to see the path God has for us. I am deeply grateful for the experience and have learned some valuable lessons, but I would not care to repeat it anytime soon.

That Moment

It seems that, once again, I have arrived at 'that moment.' The moment that makes it clear why some of my best friends say they are jealous of me half of the time and thankful they are not me half of the time. The moment when everyone waits to see what God will do, because the situation has become so dire that He is the only one who can do anything to make it right. The moment where fear, excitement, worry, eagerness, and a myriad of other emotions all clamor for attention in the murkiness that seems to shroud my life. We are at that point, you see.

I am flying tonight to New Hampshire. Tomorrow I will meet with senior HR personnel at Brookstone headquarters and undergo a nearly 7 hour 'assessment' that promises to be grueling and not a ton of fun. The next day I will be told the results, which are admittedly subjective. Assuming the results are good I will be offered a job. This job is one I would enjoy and would allow us to both pay the bills and stay in Ann Arbor. It is a substantially lower paying job than the one I left, but still very good and I would enjoy it much more.

The flip side is that if I don't get the job offer, we face financial catastrophe the likes of which I have not experienced since I was a child. For those who have known me for a while, that is saying something. I am committed to doing whatever is necessary to take care of my family, but without this position there is nothing in my current view that will make that in any way easy. That, of course creates challenges, both emotionally and spiritually of its own.

I must say that, maybe for the first time in my life I have felt a peace even in the midst of all this uncertainty. I can't explain the peace as it makes no earthly sense, but I am certainly thankful for it. My wife has commented on it more than once. Hopefully this peace is just an inner, unconscious confidence that God will place me where he wants me and a knowledge that I don't have to worry as long as I rest in Him.

So, I head off to the airport now to confront 'that moment'. Whee. :)

Battling the debt monster

One of my favorite financial lesson-givers is Dave Ramsey. He is the author of The Total Money Makeover and Financial Peace among others. He hosts a radio and TV show and does live appearances. He has may popular sayings including, "debt is dumb and cash is king." He even has some very good ideas for teaching kids the value of and responsibility with money. He balances real world financial knowledge with spiritual understanding and is one of the most popular people from the financial world today.

Why do I explain all of that? Because a big focus of Larissa and my lives has been getting out of debt. I have made many very bad financial decisions throughout my life and this has been the source of much contention in our marraige. I was raised with a terrible understanding of money and didn't learn anything the easy way. One of the lessons I've learned the hard way is how to communicate about money with my wife. We have grown in this area over time and have made a lot of progress together, but it seems that we rarely have understood the same thing the same way at the same time. Until now. One of the suggestions Dave gives is to have monthly (or more often if necessary) budget meetings. We have worked on things together, but never that consistently. Last night we began a 'meeting'. As usual, I began in the wrong way and frustrated her. She felt I ambushed her while I thought I was being considerate. Finally it got through to me that spoken numbers never connect with her and that she was feeling attacked. We dealt with some of the more sensitive and difficult spending topics, and we are working with the right budget again. It also resulting in me completing a colorful bar graph of all of our remaining debt for her around 4am. :) It feels good to be on the same page again, with a plan. With over $120K of debt (not including a home) 6 years ago it has only felt depressing and like we will never get there. I've been very committed, but a sense of hopelessness in any arena causes you to make poor decisions. Working together with Larissa I sincerely look forward to consistent progress with an attitude of hope.

I'm told that being debt free is an amazing feeling. For one of the few times I am beginning to believe we may have the opportunity to find out. It would be nice to make our money work for us instead of the other way around. We really want to do more giving, saving, and having fun. We must make the money behave instead of the other way around so that is where we will start.