less than zero

So if I don't write all this down that has happened since Sunday, how can I keep the praise to the Lord alive?

Here's my life: on the edge of financial despair. It financially fragile most of the time and sometimes more than others. I don't have a lot of frills in my life, and I've cut my expenses way down. No credit cards. I live on cash only. If I have even a few dollars in my bank account, I'm okay with that. Once in a while, however, I get a ringer.

This past weekend I knew I had $15 in my account... but I was seriously worried how I was going to be able to feed my animals for the week until payday on Friday. I was waiting on a client's check for $300, but I knew that whenever that arrived, it would be gone instantly to pay bills. But at least I had $15 - I could buy a few cans of food. No food for me, but I can scrape by. So I checked my account on Sunday... it was -$75. How the heck did that happen? Here's how: I had a yearly payment to my web provider which automatically comes out of my account - it was for $56. That put me at -$41. Add on the $34 service fee and I'm at -$75. So now I didn't even have the $15 for pet food. Do you know how frightening it is not to have food for your animals?

I called a sister in Christ, Priscilla, and we prayed. And I sobbed and sobbed, so frustrated. I hadn't had a cookie order except my regular client for weeks. No book sales. I still need to pay $460 on my car, and I have two teeth that probably need to be pulled. Not to mention that if anything happened to one of my animals, I had to way to pay for a vet bill. Priscilla and I talked and prayed for about 45 minutes. She had things in her life she wanted prayer over too. I felt better after we prayed, but I was still -$75.

The next day, Monday April 16, I got a phone call first thing in the morning - could I do 200 photo cookies for delivery on April 22? Of course I could! I sent the client a Paypal invoice, which they paid immediately - which meant I had cash! However, I needed supplies to make this happen since my supplies were almost nil. So, out of the $625 the client paid, $111.00 went to baking supplies, $108 went to packaging supplies, and $121 went to icing sheets, leaving me with $285. Now to start paying some bills... $70 went for a parking ticket (ouch, but I only get them every few years), I paid $60 for the T-mobile bill, and I transferred $100 to my bank account so that I would have that overdraft covered. Oh, and Paypal took their $19 out in fees. So I had left $36. That was it, but at least I could get some cat food. Or... so I thought.

On Tuesday my $300 check arrived and I rushed it to the bank because the Paypal transfer was still in progress, and I pulled the -$75 up to $225. Great. Ah, I was in the black!!! Now to pay more bills. AT&T was $75, and DWP was $100. Only problem with DWP is that their website was acting up and it gave me a javascript error at the last minute and acted like it didn't go through. So I waited a few minutes and tried again... still the same error. Well, it turns out that it DID go through... TWICE! Suddenly I was -$50 again!!!! I called the DWP and they refused to take responsibility. I called my bank on Wednesday morning, and they said to call the DWP again, and I knew this wasn't going anywhere. I was just in the hole again... WITH an auto payment coming out of my account. So, I was looking at having yet another $34 overdraft charge plus an auto payment that would also be an overdraft and incur another overdraft charge. How could I get $900 in 24 hours and still be in the hole? Well, that's how.

I should also add that on Monday I received an email from a repeat client asking if I could do 300 cookies asap... but she wouldn't know until Thursday about whether or not her company would approve the order. That would be an additional $900.. if it came through... and I'd definitely pay off my car... if...

So on Wednesday morning I was reading in Psalms and just praying because you know, it wasn't any surprise to the Lord that all that happened. He knew I was going to be in overdraft again. What could I do but go to work and maybe ask my boss for an advance on the week's pay. On the way, my phone rang and I pulled my bike over to answer it... and it was someone calling for an order of 75 cookies for this weekend... to be delivered to the same area as the 200 on the same day! I said... of course I can do them... and I'm thinking... $225 +$25 for delivery is $250... if I can bill her today and she pays today, I can pull cash out of my Paypal and get it into the bank to cover the overdraft and the autopayment. Well, the client did pay today, I pulled out $200... put it into the bank and I am in the black AGAIN... with $150 in the bank. I won't be paying any over draft fees on the DWP because they haven't actually gone through yet.

All I can say is praise the Lord... He giveth and taketh away... blessed be the name of the Lord.