My husband has been working two jobs for the past four years. Initially, the goal was “get out of debt and quit;” within a few years, we realized that it was more of a “we need this second job to survive.” When Bill first started working the second job, he was often there five nights a week until nearly 9:30, which is a lot for anyone, and certainly too much for someone with MS who needs to keep his stress level down. Unfortunately, the pay was excellent: at least double what I was making with commission selling cosmetics at Macy’s when I took on a second job! It was hard on all of us, and throughout the years I have seen such growth in my husband as a man and as a person, and I am proud of him. Bill managed to find a happy medium (an expression my mother used to use all the time, and I still find it irritating, but appropriate here) between working and stress: three weeknights on, two off. He started coming home by 8:30 instead of by 9:30.
Our goal for 2009 was simple: live off of the second income and take everything I make and whatever extra we can scrape together and get out of debt. I laid out a plan to attact the debt, slam it if I may. We were excited at the prospect of being debt-free; we had already changed our lifestyle considerably and were ready to really dig in.
Last week, the company laid off all of their part-time workers, and Bill was one of them. We were suddenly faced with what I initially thought would be a hardship. My first reaction was to pray, then call A. Both A and I had such a strange peace; we both agreed that we would pray and God would provide. I asked for prayer on my Facebook status (getting together a prayer army is always a good idea!) and then I looked over my plan again.
The first thing I had to do was remove all of the “big” payments I had planned to slap onto the debt balance, reducing them to what we could afford, which was a little more than the minimum payments. No problem, thank God. I then had to re-think my spending. Like many people, we have mostly fixed bills, so it is easy to plan ahead. I use Microsoft Money and I tend to plan about three months at a time, allowing for flexibility as much as possible.
All of us had to learn the true meaning of “Want vs. Need.” This was a tough one; there are many levels to both sides. My kids have been incredibly cooperative in this area and are learning to save their Christmas Money and Gift Cards until there is something they really and truly want. They never asked for much, yet somehow they are asking for less. For my part, I am using up what I have and replacing things (skincare, cosmetics, etc.) with less expensive alternatives. I re-discovered the fine art of mending, and have researched frugality in several ways:
In the past year I have frequented numerous “Frugal Blogs,” my favorite being Frugal Upstate. Every Monday, Jenn posts her weekly Menu Plan, and she has blogged in depth about how much time and money this saves her family. We started doing the same and within a few weeks we knocked our weekly food budget to about $100! Bill, the kids and I decide what we are having and when; we then create a food shopping list from that. Bill and J take lunch everyday; S buys lunch everyday but we pre-paid that back in September, which got us over a month of lunches for free.
I also read The Complete Tightwad Gazette and implemented as many of the ideas contained therein, from saving bread bags (great for when you buy meat/chicken/etc. in bulk and then you need to re-wrap after portioning) to hanging laundry (I figure I do one dryer load for every three washloads; I have a thing about needing socks, underwear and bedding to be dried lol!) to re-using as much as possible. I spent the past year de-cluttering and orgainizing; I am not 100% finished, but I’m close! Best of all is that reading this book helped me to simplify and re-think my spending habits.
Binge Eating Disorder, like so many addition disorders, often comes with co-addition. In my case, I spent too much money. I wasn’t one of those people you see on talk shows with $60,000 in high-end purses; I just spent too much for how we were living. It was an impulse issue, and one that I am glad is gone. I now get a bang from paying my bills on time, in full, and watching the debt go down instead of up. I’m disappointed that we won’t be able to pay it off this year (maybe I should never say never?), but as I said, the bills are getting paid, and that feels good.
What feels even better is having my husband home. I knew I missed him, but I didn’t realize the extent until this past week when he was home every night. It is incredible, and I am blessed. Blessed to have him, blessed to have his first job that pays the bills, and blessed to be able to trust in God for all that we have need of. I will continue to slam the debt to the best of my abilities as soon as I get the savings account back up (car repairs!), and you bet your sweet bippie it will get paid off…and stay that way.
Tonight, please say a prayer for the people whose lives are being torn apart by unemployment. Bill and I realize and are grateful for the good Civil Service job that he has. There are so many people out there who are not so fortunate, and they are on my heart.
Lots of changes, lots of counting of blessings, lots of reduce/reuse/delay gratification/do without. It all adds up to getting by in these crazy times. Turning to face the strange changes feels better than I thought.
