Fear Itself

I have been thinking a lot lately about my mother and fear. She was a strong woman before she got sick, but she was afraid of so much. She never learned to skate, or swim. She only flew once, and hated it. And after she got sick, she had new fears, night terrors. She became terrified of fire, of getting worse, of being left alone.

She gave me a different fear. The fear of waking up at forty and seeing your entire life’s work slipping away. No savings, too much debt and not enough insurance. So, I’ve spent the past four months making some changes. I’ve paid off three grand in personal debt, I bought life insurance, rental insurance, and I tucked away some money in a Flex medical account to supplement my health insurance. I am still, however, afraid of failing. It is a long way up out of barely scraping by, but the fall back down hurts more.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Sometimes, it feels like every bit of progress I make is eaten up by disaster. Start paying off my credit card, get hit by a $80 prescription. My dental insurance paid for one tooth but denied the other for some reason they will 'explain later.' A death in the family has eaten my savings for Christmas.

I am still so committed to paying off my debt, but it's been more difficult than I expected it to be. I'm depressed, of course. I miss my mother. Her death was not unexpected, but more sudden than any of us had figured.

I stare at my budget spreadsheet, trying to figure out how to make things go faster, but it's just not possible without having any savings at all, or until my husband can help with the bills. It's frustrating.

What Keeps Me Up At Night

The Current Financial Situation

I make twice as much now as I did six months ago, so why is it harder to live on?

Well, first things first, six months ago I was not paying on my massive private student loans. Six months ago, the Husband had a stipend and was paying his share, some $200 dollars a month. Six months ago, my commute was five miles, not thirty. It adds up.

I thought I'd break out the budget into categories and try to figure out why I feel just as broke as I did in my shitty temp job.

Holy Shit. I'm spending 53% percent of my income paying down debt. I feel as strapped as I did six months ago because really,I'm still living off the same amount I did then, plus I'm paying for Hubby's share of everything except rent.

Wow. I actually feel better. I thought I was turning into one of those crazy misers who wouldn't be happy no matter how much she made.

A very long week...

I am prone to be depressed. I do not have enough estrogen to function like a human being, and I am literally too fat for the only medicine that's ever helped. Still, even if I had started the week chipper, it would have been rough.

Root canal on Monday, followed by excruiciating pain. My lip went numb at 2 am that night, and I called the dentist the next morning. This was apparently a sign the bacteria were chowing down on my nerves. New antibiotic.

Boss got sick, and spent Tuesday mostly dead. I covered one of her meetings and rescheduled the rest. It doesn't help that our job is supposedly imppossible. But I truely do believe there is no try. We will make this process change. We may not be able to make the horses drink, but we will lead them to the water.

The worst thing, though, is that my husband got a job offer he's not going to take. It's not the 'right kind' of chemistry. Yes, Environmental Health is a far cry from drug discovery but the economy is in shambles and I pay his half of the groceries (100$/month), the electric ($50/month), the internet ($40/month) and anything else that comes up. He's *supposed* to be working on his thesis, but I don't think he's touched it in months. I'm out of ideas. I need to get him off the sofa before the urge to smother him gets too strong.

A Childless Couponer in a World of Clipping Mothers

I feel very alone on the savings blogs sometimes. I am a married woman now, but we are childless, by choice and circumstance. We lived off very little for the year and a half after I left school, but now, we *could* spend more, if we wanted to. But with the Dear Husband job hunting and my debt monster roaming the house after I fall asleep, it's best to stay frugal.

It's all Popou's fault. Now, you have to understand, my grandfather, while not wealthy, lived well below his means. As a railroad employee, he had a pension and insurance. He got a second pension from Centro. He died, after ten years of battling Emphysema, with 60 grand in investments, another 30 grand in the bank, life insurance, a paid off house and car. He shopped at three different grocery stores to get the best bang for his buck and kept a stack of coupons about the thickness of a phone book. I did his shopping from age 9, I was the youngest person to ever ask for my own Wegman's card. Now, back home they double coupons. Here, they don't, so I don't do as well as he did, but his training served me well. Not only do my husband and I eat pretty damn well for two people eating off $50 a week, but I also got a 5 on an AP Geography test because I knew grapes came from Chile in the winter. He was a miserable bastard, but I miss him.

I'll be blogging about my couponing adventures in addition to personal finance.

Personal Finance

I find myself, at 25, with over $6000 dollars in personal debt, plus another $130,000 in student loans. My grandfather is probably rolling over in his grave. I also find myself in possession of a husband (unemployed at the moment) and my first 'real' job, the kind with a decent salary and benefits.

The personal debt is the worst, the result of six months of unemployment after I dropped out of grad school and three root canals. It is the monster under my bed. I've decided to kill it.

The monster is so big, I will have to slowly suffocate it.

Starting tomorrow and running until next summer, I will pay down the credit cards, each week, at payday, before the money can run away. I'll begin micromanaging my budget. When I've killed that beast, I'll go after it's friend, the Wells Fargo 8% student loan. That will be another two years. I've been 'trying' to pay this stuff down for a long time. But, as Yoda said, "There is no 'try." Jill Connor Brown, the Sweet Potato Queen, agreed with him. Change happens in an instant. Change happens at midnight, when my paycheck posts.

I will do it this time.