Financial challenges

My husband and I are getting a bit creative with our finances. We had a pretty good budgeting system in place, but then we lost a HUGE chunk of our income last month. With some divine intervention, I was able to find a temporary job that helped fill in that gap just a little bit. And this month, the challenge has again presented itself. We are so grateful despite these challenges we're facing that we're able to keep things like home phone and Internet service and our Netflix subscription. But there are definitely sacrifices we've both had to make so that we are still living within our means.

One of the sacrifices we are making is our vacations. We've never been the kind of people to regularly take trips or even be extravagant when we do take trips. We bargain shop and plan ahead for flights, hotels (the couple times we've stayed in one versus staying with family), entertainment, etc. But it's a luxury we're not going to be able to afford. This really bums me out, because I have a cousin I was pretty close to before moving away getting married. And I can't make the trip to see her at this milestone in her life. I also have many other cousins I don't know very well at all because of age differences and physical distances between us, and I'm missing an opportunity to get to spend some time with them because I just can't afford the trip. Plus it's looking like we won't even be able to travel for Thanksgiving or Christmas, even if we started saving for it now.

Instead, we have looked at some of our priorities. One of those has been to find out if we can have kids or should start the adoption process. This has meant spending well over what it would've cost us for two plane tickets to see family over the course of the last two months alone for tests. And we still have tests to come. In fact, I honestly don't think we're any closer to having an answer, but that doesn't mean I've lost hope. In fact, I have a lot of hope right now, and I think that will carry me through for a while at least.

I am so grateful for the tools that are all around us and the support we receive that tell us that financial decisions we are making and sacrifices we are making are what we are supposed to be doing at this point in time. We really have been blessed with so much, and during challenging times I have found that I am reminded just how much I have been blessed.