In the interest of self-disclosure and motivating myself to make changes…you get a post about money. I had this sitting in my drafts for a few weeks and decided it was time to finish and publish it. Deep breath…
Okay, I know no one likes to talk about money. I sure don’t. I like to spend it, and I even like to make it (sometimes), but I don’t really like to talk about it. However, I’ve gotten off work early a few times lately and started listening to the Dave Ramsey radio show again. I miss it totally if I’m headed home at my regular time. I’m not saying Dave has all the answers (or that he’s the only one out there with great advice on personal finances), but he is so very much smarter than I am. There’s something about his logic that really cuts out all the crap and excuses we all make and lays it all out there. You want _____? Okay, here’s where you are now in black and white. Here are the numbers. Here’s what you need to do to get there. It’s going to stink for a while until you get there, but you can do it. Rice and beans, beans and rice… Well, that’s a poor paraphrase, but you get the idea. Cut the crap and the self-pity, and get a plan if you want things to change. Decide if what you have is an income problem or a spending problem (or both), and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. No bailout is coming your way, so get a plan.
I feel like we live pretty frugally. This is a big reason I am able to work 3 days a week and not full-time! At one point several years ago, we had absolutely no debt but our house (and that included paying off some stupid credit card debt and several HUGE medical bills). Until the past 2 years, Andrew and I have both always held multiple jobs. I guess you could say we both still do (Andrew is leading worship for several places/events on a regular basis, and I have a little monthly job in addition to my regular). We have 2 smallish debts now, and I swear I could smash something every time I make a monthly payment on them. We are paying extra on both and they will be gone very soon, but it just crawls all over me that we have those because we didn’t plan well enough for my last semester of grad school tuition and for my income magically disappearing in the summers (duh). We also have an occasional and amazing inability to do simple addition/subtraction (mostly subtraction, unfortunately) on the checking account. That is also stupid.
I think my current frustration comes from not being able to pursue some of our “big goals” because things are so tight. Sufficient, but tight. We have health/life insurance, enough to pay our bills and pay on our debt, enough to buy what groceries we need and extra to eat out (which we do much too often), and so on. Other than the “stupid summer” that got us the debt we’re paying on, we are getting better each year at managing what we have. I’m very proud of that, but I always think it could be better. We need to go back to the cash envelope system to get really, really back on track. I hate to use cash. 
I don’t know why. I just do, but we need to do it anyway. That has been so successful for us in the past, and how we were able to pay off some scary-big medical bills that kept me up late at night.
We cut a lot of corners and try to live simply. We cloth diaper, make our own bread, make our own laundry detergent, switched to CFL bulbs (love those!), drive “well-loved” cars, do our own home repairs (and car repairs when possible), eat simple meals (lots of vegetarian meals at home), shop at thrift stores/garage sales, and on and on. I am also getting serious about couponing (again). However, we also spend a lot eating out, shop mindlessly sometimes (that would be me, not Andrew–dang those red clearance stickers at Target), send Baby Girl to Mother’s Day Out twice a week, and support someone’s Starbuck’s habit. See how I didn’t name names there? 
That’s very nice of me.
I would like to be able to give more than our regular church tithe, start our adoption RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE, possibly stay home for a period of time rather than working part-time, make some improvements to our house (totally superficial, but it’s a “want” I have), pay off our debt, pay off our mortgage, have a substantial emergency fund in place (that should be at the top of the list, actually), and do some family traveling. None of these things will happen until we become better at managing what we have. The math shows us that we don’t have an income issue–what we make is plenty to cover what we need. When we run out of money before we run out of month, that’s a spending/management issue.
Okay, I really don’t want to hit “publish,” but I will. This is either over-sharing or a way to kick myself in the butt and do a better job. There you go.
