I would rather be poor and happy but I gotta pay my bills first....

I find myself recently completely overwhelmed and long for the times before I had kids. Please do not get me wrong as I wouldn't trade my life with my children for anything but before we had kids, my financial life was secure. Time line wise though, things have just gotten worse and its been coincidentally since the kiddos arrived -that's all I mean.


Before, I could go grab a coffee with my friends at the coffee shop whenever the urge arose or buy that really cute shirt without a second thought. My bills were paid and I had money left over to go out and do things, go on little trips and buy things with out second guessing my account balance and I made less money then than I do now!


Now we are scraping by to pay the bills. The cheap coffee at Circle-K is a luxury that I can sneak in only every couple of months. We pay our bills and we make all of our meals at home. Lunches for work are always brought from home. If I don't remember my lunch I better pray I still have some snack crackers or a granola bar stashed in my desk drawer. I am even rationing my use of gas for only to and from work and to buy groceries as much as possible.


I know the recession has been a huge impact on people and many have lost their jobs and hit hard times. My recession has been a combination of hard times mixed with personal choices and poor planning. We were not as financially prepared for children as we originally thought when I became pregnant with my daughter, as I had to go on bed rest a little over 3 months before she was due. I lost my income and was not able to get much assistance so my husband had to work 2 full time jobs so we could pay bills. If it wasn't for gifts and hand-me-downs we would not have even had the equipment such as a crib and car seat for her. A little over a year ago my husband quit one of his jobs. It was the highest paying job of the 2 he had but he had a long commute and horrible hours and they were working him sick. Our relationship suffered as we never saw one another because he was always at work and he missed a lot of time with our kids; So it was good for him to quit there but we took a huge hit on our income. Between this and a few hardships, like health issues, legal issues, car repairs, etc... Things are tight. We have been fortunate enough to be able to get buy with dipping into our savings, because that what its there for right? But we lately have been beginning to depend on it to make sure everything is paid and paid on time without being able to put back into savings much of what we have been taking out. Now I am 25 years old, we have 3 children to care for, our 2 and my stepson, and our pets (if you have ever met us we are animal lovers so giving up our pets would not be an option either as they are part of our family too). We are currently negative approximately $600 a month because of a combination of just having more going out than coming in, medical bills and a few car repairs - give or take depending on whats due - and have about $15,000 in debt between credit cards and student loans. This does not count what we owe for our cars and our mortgage.


Unfortunately, where we live, each of us having a car is a necessity. We live in a very small town without a public bus or transit system, in AZ which means that it is too dangerously hot to attempt walking in our heat, and the small town we live in is about a 25 minute drive from my husband's work and a hour from mine. So getting rid of a car is not an option.


Our home was purchased during this recession. Some one's misfortune became our opportunity and we purchased a short sale which costs us a few hundred less a month on our mortgage payment, HOA fees, property taxes and home-owners' insurance total than if we rented a small 3 bedroom apartment. So moving is not an option either and at this point with the market, moving would be a really stupid move - so that rules out downsizing which in this situation would hurt us instead of help us.


So that leaves me with some limitations that are usually on the first of every one's list of how to decrease the amount of bills you pay....


Here is my challenge -


I am going to not only lower my monthly bills but I going to pay off my student loans and our credit cards so that I can not only have enough money to pay my bills and pay them on time without having to live from check to check or dip into my savings to do so but I will be able to keep at least $1,000 to start in my savings account and still save up to take my family to FL and to Disney World.


I am going to be realistic so I am giving myself a year to get the bills paid. It is now June 2010, by June 2011 I want to have the bills paid off and have my savings started up and on my way to financial freedom for life. I want to make this a journey that everyone could share in my "hurray!" moments and even to help inspire anyone else who maybe in a similar boat and to just vent to those who may understand when I am overwhelmed and tempted to give up hope.







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ball up and Cry

So my hubby has been out of town for over the last week and he won't be back for almost another week. I am going insane. I don't think he realizes how much we appreciate everything he does and that we do know how hard he works and all the things he does for us. It becomes apparent especially when he leaves. But I want to have the house just as clean and kept up when he gets home as it is when he is here but I am finding it very difficult to keep up with everything as well as it is when he is here. My husband pampers me. He cleans the house, does yard work, does the check book, cooks, tends to the kids, fixes the car, does the dishes, the laundry, etc... But I also miss him. I am missing how he makes me laugh, makes me feel better when I am stressed, plays with the kids... My insomnia has been horrible with him gone. There are nights that I end up fussing at him to rollover because his snoring keeps me up, but when he is gone, the silence is maddening. I want the snoring ba...
Read more

From a Preschool Teacher's Point of View - Things Parents Need to Teach Their Children During the Preschool Age

Image
     I have been teaching preschool for a few years now and it astounds me how many children enroll in my class lacking so many basic skills that many would assume come naturally. I have had parents ask me what they can do to give their child a good boost in the right direction for success in school. I am proud to say that my students who have moved on to kindergarten each year, start school with a noticeable head start compared to their classmates not only academically but socially and majority start already blending letters, working on sight words and word families as well as starting basic addition and subtraction. Here are a few things that I feel, for the love of all things holy and for the sake of your child, that you should do as your child is a toddler and moves into preschool age. 1. Say "No" every once in a while. Set some limits and stick to them and let your child learn that they cannot just whine until they get their way. Life is full of disappointme...
Read more
   I am such an emotional train wreck right now I don't even know where to start.... Thursday I broke my back tooth while eating pizza. It is my own fault as I waited too long to have the cap put on after my root canal... I had to have an emergency root canal while pregnant with Lily and the root canal capped out my insurance so I was waiting until the new year rolled over to have the cap/crown put on but then I found out I was pregnant with Pelia in January. With it already being such a high risk pregnancy and all the other complications, I didn't want any dental work to cause more stress on the pregnancy so I waited even longer, and I guess I waited too long... I have a last minute dentist appointment this evening to have it checked out and I am sure I will have to get an implant so that the tooth above it doesn't start to drop down.  To top it off when one of the mom's to my preschooler's came to pick up her daughter yesterday I asked that she make sure she was h...
Read more