April 15th

I think many people have a love hate relationship with this day.  Translation, Happy Tax Day people.  

Most years I could have cared less about the fact that April 15th was Tax Day.  Why?  Because the few years that I thought about it, I had already filed my taxes and in some cases even received my return before Tax Day came.  That makes for a Happy Emily.  

This year, I was very aware of April 15th.  We owed for the first time and I learned that when you owe taxes typically you wait as close as you can to that day to avoid money leaving your account any sooner than it has to.  

We sent everything off and I probably had one of the worst expressions of my life on my face.  I despised what I was doing.  Within seconds, I began rethinking my expression.  Part of mine and Greg's pre-marital counseling was to take Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University.  Ladies and gentleman, we have an emergency fund.  The security that has come with that little amount of funds is indescribable.  I HATED that we had to use some of those funds for our taxes but I realized very quickly that it could have been much worse.  

Many, many people in this country do not have emergency funds.  Many people live paycheck to paycheck with crazy amounts of debt.  Greg and I have worked very hard to think through our financial decisions together.  It is tough.  However, we know that the more intentional we are now with our funds the better we will be in the future.  

We are so thankful that we had people tell us how important it was for us to take FPU early on and we are even more thankful to have people who still want to help us along the road to financial freedom.  It is not easy, but it is possible.