Ugh. I've been struggling to have "enough" money for years. Some years were downright painful - 2004 was one and 2008, well, as I've said before, EVERYTHING was awful about 2008. Including our lack of money.
Things have been better in the last year. I've got a new daycare child and Mr. Simple got a different job. But yet, despite the extra money, we still aren't exactly rolling in it. I'm still frugal because I want to be AND because we have to be.
And despite wanting to be simple and despite trying to eat healthy, I'm just getting worn out from feeling like we can never go out to eat. Or go to a movie. Or get something that I want/need, something that is even less than $50, just on a whim.
We just got our tax return. Great, right? Ugh. I swear, it just makes me more depressed sometimes because it looks great sitting in the account, but then when I sit down and write all the checks for all of the medical and dental bills (and we even had health and dental insurance for the whole family last year!) that we owe, the return gets A LOT smaller. Then, we desperately need to finish the carpet job that we started last year. And I did get the kids a small thing that they wanted, and I got myself some workout clothes. And poof! It is gone.
And the REALLY depressing thing? Even after writing a bunch of checks for medical and dental bills, we STILL won't be able to pay it all off. Hopefully we will finish paying them all off completely in the next six months, but UGH.
I know I'm not alone in all of this. And as I was talking to my mom the other day, I know that in some ways, we are doing really well. We aren't upside-down in our house or anything. If we sold it right now, we would make a profit. We pay cash for everything. We are basically out of debt except for the mortgage. We have a place to live, we have transportation, we have clothes, we have food.
But sometimes, it would be nice to go out and buy something. And not have to worry about it.
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2 comments:
I have struggled with this too. Since we were poor growing up I always wanted to live a life of abundance. I feel proud of myself that I am thrifty and make the money stretch and we have no debt (other than house) too. I have visited other countries where you see poverty...realy poverty and I realize how much I have. We have such a high standard of living in America, nothing compares. Just have to shift our perspective and not get sucked into the world's materialism.
Yes, Matthew and I have been talking about how we spend so much of our lives striving to become worldly successful when in truth we really already are compared to so many people. But I totally understand. It is so FUN to splurge sometimes. That's why I like garage sales -- hunt, splurge, don't feel too bad
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