Sometimes You Have to Reboot...

So what do you do when life just doesn’t turn out the way you expected?

I mean, we had a good plan to pay off our debt. By August we had planned that Chip would be through OCS and be an officer in the National Guard and his commissioning bonus would pay off my largest headache of a credit card. In the meantime, the money he would make would knock a large chunk out of our other card. We would be well on our way to being debt free.

But sometimes…you know where the road to good intentions leads…

Chip was not ready for OCS. He was dismissed early and will not get to complete it at this time. He does get to go back if he so chooses. And I’ve let him know that I fully support him and believe him to be capable. The problem this time? He wasn’t prepared. No one else there just cleared MEPS three weeks ago. No one else there just got their (new) military ID two weeks ago. No, the others there have been regularly drilling with a real unit for months…many of them years. They had time to study their manual. Chip has spent the last three weeks putting together paperwork and running around trying to gather all of the uniforms and gear he would need for OCS.

He just wasn’t ready this time.

And so much happened just before he left that tried to keep him from going. He pushed through it all and made it (against seemingly all odds).

This makes me believe that maybe this was not his time to be at OCS. Maybe there is a reason he needs to be at home right now. Maybe that is why so many roadblocks came up in the first place. Maybe God was trying to keep him home. And once he got there, maybe God said something to the effect of, “Holy cow, what will it take to get through to him?!” and made sure he came home.

Maybe not.

But we’ve got to make a new plan now.

We’ve got to re-evaluate our plan.

While Chip has been unemployed over the last few months, all of our monthly overages have been coming out of our accelerated emergency fund that was built out of our tax refund. That money is almost gone now. And I was okay with that because soon we were going to be a dual income family again and our debt was going to be drastically reduced, making it easier to knock out those finals bills.

But now that can’t happen.

So what do you do?

What do you do when you go to get an oil change and end up dropping $400 on other repairs that are needed (and totally legitimate)?

What do you do when he spends $1000 buying items that are necessary to go to OCS and then doesn’t get the chance to get that money back in salary?

You re-plan.

And that’s what we’re doing.

Wish us luck!

Have you ever had to back up and start again things just didn’t go as planned?

Photo credit: allenp