Resources
A note on resources, part 1

Since everything costs more, we’ve tried to be more deliberate with our spending and saving. Saving? Who us? Yes, saving.

Background - Bill was a frugal freak show when I met him 11 years ago. I was a cash & credit card whore. He ate ramen noodles, I was all “Who’s Ramen?” He drove an Escort, I drove a Galaxy (and yes, I was the center of it). He kept charts marking to the penny what money he had. I had pretty plastic that I organized rainbow style in my wallet.

It really is a miracle that we’ve made it this far.

Aside from learning through much trial and error, part of what’s working for us is having a partner at home to manage the resources and a partner outside the home to earn it. I don’t have dinner waiting on the table every night (and it’s not expected that I do) but if we don’t want what food we have to go to waste, someone has to make sure it gets eaten in a timely fashion. While we may seem to use more energy to be in the home (versus being somewhere else using other energy sources), I can take advantage of the off-peak energy hours to tackle tasks requiring major energy drains (cooking, using hot water, vacuuming, etc.) I can also take better advantage of the sun’s energy for drying clothes and warming water for cleaning purposes than if I were working outside the home during the day.

I think a lot of our stress as 2 outside-the-home workers came from fruitless efforts to rejuvenate in a space that no one had the energy to make rejuvenating. That is not to say that our space hits the mark entirely right now, but I do find myself less stretched in regards to making our house a home - and hope Bill might say the same. The house is never immaculate, but it has come a long way from the days when I would pile papers to be graded and books to be read on every clear surface available. On most days you can now even find room on the sofa to sit. I know there are plenty of people who are naturally able to live according to some rhyme or reason AND be employed outside the home…I wasn’t one of them. Maybe someday I’ll be - who knows?

What we do know is that we are able to take stock of our resources and actually manage them instead of hoping, like in the past, that our resources would, like magic beans, just providentially grow before our eyes. We actually can now invest regularly in various things for saving purposes. We can actually do the biweekly mortgage thing without fretting every payday.

Only 2 years ago we had a tremendous amount of revolving debt. I couldn’t imagine being where we are today…a month or so away from being entirely out of credit card debt…at a place where we can actually use the credit card to accumulate rewards and pay it off each month. It was unfathomable to me that people were “with it” enough to live with such tidiness and now to almost be one of them is a bit unreal. We’ve upped our 401K contribution, are monitoring our IRA accounts, tracking etrade, and managing to eat pretty darn well on a regular basis – in our 2nd decade or so as such – we’re finally beginning to feel like adults.

Oh, we still eat out, that’s a privilege I much too enjoy to forsake entirely. But we don’t eat out with reckless abandon – we try to use coupons and we make our outings as special as possible. While we may not live like paupers, for the first time in my life, I think I understand what living beneath your means is all about.

In subsequent posts, I will note some of what’s been working for us.