Man when I said I was cracking down on the finances I didn’t realize how much good it would do us. Over the past few weeks I’ve spent just about every night looking over bills, debts, and the rest of our finances trying to cut corners and pinch pennies at every angle.
We’re not hurting, but we’ve still got way more debt than I would like. Heck I won’t be happy until we have no debt, but then again who in their right mind likes to be in debt. I do however feel a great sense of accomplishment because we’ve been struggling with our finances since before we got married.
It seems like the second I get a hold on things something happens. Someone loses a job, hubby has a motorcycle wreck, hubby wrecks my Saturn, hubby wrecks my Blazer, hubby wrecks something…yeah you see where this is going. Something always happens to put us a month behind on our bills with credit cards maxed all over again.
Maybe it’s just the fact that I’m older now, and I’ve actually stepped up and told hubby he’s never touching the finances again, but things seem to finally be going my way. When hubby is in charge of paying the bills, nothing gets paid. When hubby’s in charge of the money, it disappears. He finally faced the music a few months ago and admitted that he just can’t handle money.
Me on the other hand, I grew up in a household where every penny was pinched. Hell my I can’t remember a single day of my life when my dad wasn’t wearing one of those little calculator watches. It amazes me to see him punching away on those itty bitty little buttons, but the man makes it work! Numbers are his thing, and he made sure his daughter’s knew how to handle their finances. That doesn’t mean I always listened, but at least when my money was being flushed down the toilet I knew it!
Anywho, I just spent a couple hours going over all of our finances from the past year. It has officially been 1 year since the day I decided I wasn’t going to work a normal job anymore. I’ve had my little side business going since I was 19, but last year I finally up and decided I was making it my full time job.
Between that and the income I earn from my blogs, I still don’t make as much as I did working a full time job, but you know what? For once in my life I’m happy with my job situation. I’m happy with our financial situation, and I finally have a handle on things.
When I worked a full time job I was stuck in a manufacturing plant at least 6 days a week, and there were many many months where I worked 21 days straight, had 1 or 2 days off, then worked another 21 days straight. I barely had enough time to think let alone take care of the finances. Now I can actually devote the time to taking care of everything. Hell I realized we spent over $1500 last year just in late fees and reconnection fees because our bills were always a month behind or things were getting disconnected. A $15 reconnection fee when my cell gets shut off might not seem like a lot at the time, but it’s $15 per line, and I can’t tell you how many times it happened.
The truth is together hubby and I may be bringing less money into the home now, but overall we have more cash now. We have way more in savings, and we have way less debt. We have things to show for all the hard work we do now. Before I was mindlessly working my days away watching every penny we earned get sucked up by this credit card company or that collection agency.
Never again will I allow us to get into that situation unless something well beyond my control happens. At 26 years old I’m no longer sitting around looking at the houses and cars and toys my friends and family have wishing that could be me. Now I look at those things, and I tell myself next year I’ll have that piece of land I’ve been dreaming of. I’ll have that new bike I want. For once things seem real.
