In light of recent events and our recent post about COCINA, a non-profit organization in Ouaniminthe, Haiti, we wanted to share information about how you may help with disaster relief.  COCINA’s website, www.haiticocina.org, allows you to donate by check or through PayPal.  From now through April, all PayPal donations will go directly to earthquake relief.  COCINA plans to do the following through donations they receive:

• Hugues, the director, along with some of their medical staff will load a bus full of water, food, basic medicines, and triage supplies.  They’ll make the 10-15 hour drive to Port-au-Prince and treat the wounded and sick and give away supplies.  While there, they also plan to search for several of their former students that were in the capital city looking for jobs.
• Another mission of their trip to Port-au-Prince is to bring back Ouaniminthe locals that have no way to get back or have had any contact with their families.
• Water and other necessities have heavily increased in price since the earthquake, and with all banks closed, cash is inaccessible.
• Over the next several weeks and months, many Haitians will migrate North to find a new place to call home.  Ouaniminthe will be one of those towns that will receive new residents, and with it, new needs.  Children will need homes and schooling; many will need medical attention.  Through the Institution Univers and Univers Medical Clinic, COCINA hopes to meet those new needs.

Whether it’s to COCINA or other organizations such as the American Red Cross, please consider doing what you can to help this hurting country.  And above all else, please keep them in your prayers.

Giving is an important part of what we choose to do with our money.  As Christians, we believe in giving 10 percent of our income to our local church.  But on top of that, we’ve found it rewarding and fulfilling to give in other ways: volunteering your time, donating items to charity and giving money to those in need.

COCINA is an organization that we are passionate about supporting.  It all started about 10 years ago when I went on a mission trip to Ouaniminthe, Haiti, a town just over the Dominican Repulic border.  As we walked across the wood bridge that brought us into Haiti, I was astonished at the smells, the sights and the sadness in this poor country.  But the town of Ouaniminthe has a bright spot in it and that bright spot is Institution Univers, a private Christian-based school.  In a country where education is limited and under-resourced, this school is teaching kids not only basic skills, but the skills necessary to turn a impoverished town into a self-sufficient community.

In the last decade since my first visit, the school has grown considerably, graduating its first class of 15 students, 6 of which earned scholarships to go on to college. In addition, a medical building has been constructed and is fully-functioning.  In a quiet town without much activity, COCINA is busy waking up the futures of generations to come.  And we get to be a part of it.

Not to mention that donating couldn’t be easier.  We send a monthly amount through PayPal which will track our charitable giving for tax purposes.  Check out their website www.haiticocina.org or find your own organization to give to.  Knowing that your money fed the hungry, healed the sick and sent kids to college is worth more than anything money can buy.
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We want to hear your giving stories! If you’ve got one you’d like to share, email it to us, and we’ll be sure to feature it as a future guest post.

With all the gift buying and giving that this season brings, we find it a little silly to purchase gifts for each other on top of it all.  Not that we don’t want to show  our love and thoughtfulness through gifts, but we’d like to think we do that year round!  For our first Christmas together we weren’t going to do gifts for each other at all, but after strange looks from co-workers and scrooge-like guilt, we decided to exchange gifts in some capacity.  Since we were working on Baby Step #2 (our “debt snowball”), we didn’t want to spend much on each other.

Our solution was to fill each other’s stockings with “odds and ends”-type gifts.  The stockings are handmade by my mom and have always been a special Christmas decoration around the house.  Since we’re past the days of our parents filling our stockings, we decided to do it ourselves.  For the month of December, Andrew and I forfeit our fun money from the budget to buy each other’s gifts.  That way, I don’t feel like I’m paying for my own present but instead know that Andrew had to sacrifice his apps and Taco Bell runs to buy something special for me .

So what kinds of things do we fill the stockings with?  Last year they were filled with things like Burt’s Bees Chapstick, Every Man Jack Face Lotion, popcorn seasoning, our favorite SET card game, and gum.  Nothing too extravagant—just little things that say “I thought you might like nacho-flavored popcorn.”  And this year’s stockings?  I can’t tell you that!  We’ll have to wait and see…

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Want to see our official stockings?  They’re right here!

Our man Dave Ramsey has put out several awesome holiday wallpapers this season, and each is a great reminder of one aspect of Christmas which is easy to forget, that we should “give like no one else.”  It’s an obvious take on DR’s main philosophy which is that if you live like no one else now, you’ll definitely be able to live like no one else later on.

We had to share the wallpaper below, since it’s the intersection of two things which we know and love, Hope (get it?) and the principles that guide the way we think about money:

Make it (or one of the others) your desktop background—if you’re working on the computer all day, you’ll be glad for the not-so-subtle reminder!

We’re in the process of wrapping up our Christmas shopping for this year, and we thought it would cool to share with you our process for staying sane (mentally and financially) during the holiday gift-giving season.  So here’s a quick overview of the tricks and tools we use to ensure materialistic success!

Step #1: My Christmas Wish List

Julie’s family had been using My Christmas Wish List for some time before we met in 2007.  It’s a website that allows you to create your own Christmas list to share with others, who then have the opportunity to mark items on your list as purchased or as something which they are planning to purchase.  It essentially eliminates duplicate gifts and also ensures that the items you receive are things you actually want.

We use MCWL in a “Secret Santa”-style format.  We draw names (on both sides of the family), set a monetary limit, and go to town!  With a total of 8 siblings + spouses + kids on both sides, this also means that everybody doesn’t have to buy gifts for everyone else.  This makes sense to us, as most of us are working professionals and don’t necessarily need anything when Christmas time comes around.

Step #2: Google Doc

We do an all-cash Christmas, so we try to keep pretty good track of what we plan to spend (our budget) and what actually gets spent.  To that end, each year we create a Google Document with the following columns:

Person   |   Target Price  |   What?   |   Where?   |   Actual Price

It’s the same principle that guides the way we do business regularly: make sure we know where our money is going before it even goes anywhere.

Step #3: Never pay full price (if possible)

‘Tis the season for deals, right?  We take advantage of sites like Retail Me Not (coupon codes for online shopping) and Beat My Price (set a price target for an item, and they’ll go out to the major sites to make sure you find the best price) to ensure that we are getting the very best deal possible.  We also plan to make one big Amazon order every year, since people are usually asking for books, music, and movies and TV shows (affiliate links), although increasingly we’re getting closer and closer to being able to order our entire Christmas list from Amazon!

So that’s our plan! It’s a lot of fun to bless our friends and family during this time of year, but more importantly, the time when we remember the One to came to give us His ultimate blessing.  Our obedience should be reflected in blessing others all throughout the year, not just at Christmastime.  This obedient heart may best be summed up in Mary’s response to the angel Gabriel, found in Luke 1:38,

“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have said.”

Blessings from Julie and I for an awesome Christmas holiday!  We thank you for being a part of ours.

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NEW THIS WEEK: Be sure you check out our brand-new Facebook fan page!

We’re no Young House Love yet (particularly the recent baby on the way part), but we did do a little rearranging in light of our recent purchase and the holiday season which is upon us.  Here’s what things looked like before we got move-crazy:

As you can see, we had a monster entertainment center that was taking up a good portion of our smallish living room.  We donated that item to a local resale store, Ditto, which benefits the Christian schools in our area (we’ll even get a little tax benefit from that).  Then we needed to come up with an arrangement that would best accommodate the big green chair-couch (on the left).  Here’s what we came up with:

It turned out pretty well, and we’re even getting the chance to use our IKEA chair in a better way as well.  The green monster found its way to the near center of the room, and does a nice job of making some separation between the living and dining room.  Although we decided to forego a Christmas tree this year, we do have our handmade stockings (handcrafted by Julie’s mom) hanging below our windowsill:

The new TV is great!  Watching movies in high-def is excellent, and more than anything, our new living room seems to be making better use of the space.  Not a typical blog post from us, but we hope you’ve enjoyed it!