We’ve all had times when we had to rob Peter to pay Paul. By that I mean that I’m sure that most folks have had those days when paying one bill meant not paying another. Maybe you’ve had times when some very important bills got paid on a credit card or a line of credit. It can be extremely frustrating and if you’re not careful it can get away from you in a hurry.

To this day I’m not sure how our family made it through my late in life decision to go to law school. There I was in my early 30s with a wife, two kids, a dog and a mortgage and now I go to law school?! But with careful application of a second mortgage on the house, a little bit of GI Bill, two very modest day job paychecks and a credit card, the shell game played out for three years. It was likely a daily Rubik’s Cube of financial wizardry. Using the credit card to pay for daily trips to Birmingham for class, then pay down the balance as best we could, draw from the credit line to pay tuition when the GI Bill was short, pay it back down, then draw it again when the regular paycheck got irregular. It was a 36-month financial tightrope, but God was faithful, I graduated, and somehow the lights stayed on and the kids always had Christmas.