Living Small

The world scares me these days. Gas is rising, rising, rising. Our country is pretty much owned by China in order to pay for war that we essentially sowed the seeds for in a unprecedented act of aggression. Food is getting more and more expensive. In the Emerald City your buck goes barely anywhere. Everything just feels a little crunched.

We've never been entirely financially comfortable, but we've always been able to get the things we want and not have a huge amount of debt. It doesn't feel that way anymore. I have an ever-growing list of things we need that we simply can't afford. A new bed. A new couch. A new computer. At the same time it feels like our money goes a shorter and shorter distance these days, being sucked up by the basics expensese of having a roof over our head and food on our table. Then we started talking about preschool for Finn next fall and my stomach developed some sort of horrible knot.

Money matters suck.

M. has lost all but one of her clients. This is bad. It's good as well. We finally have some time together instead of stolen snatches of frantic moments where we do too little and beat ourselves up. We're also down to my income, which means I get to work my ass off and pull overtime to keep us afloat. We'll make it. We always do.

In the meantime I've had a revelation. I need to live small. I am going to mend my spendthrift, cd buying, clothes hog, eating out, latte drinking ways (sorry Starbucks, this girl is on drip for a while). I'm going on a money diet. I have decided that I'm not going to spend money beyond our basic needs for the next month.

Of course the first thing I did after this huge declaration is turn to M. and tell her we should buy Finn a water play mat and a bubble maker and he really needs shoes and I really need new clothes and...and...and....

I'm a Taurus. I admit that I love my stuff. This is going to be hard. But I'm a Taurus and I have a deep well of determination that makes me both successful and a huge pain in the ass. I can do this and I need to, for my family. Even if it's hard.