Christmas, Money, and Florida, oh my!

Last week we were able to secure 3 tickets to FL with some finagling and help from family, so we are FINALLY going to visit my well-missed and well-loved family and friends in January. I am so excited I could pee! (…I guess that doesn’t mean much coming from a pregnant woman.)

The Portland homefront is doing well, tight on $, but well. (We decided to go in the backyard this week to chop the top off a small evergreen because we can’t afford a christmas tree this year, which isn’t the worst thing in the world. Scratch that, we realized we have no saw! ) So far, our backyard has supplied the bulk of our holiday decorating, and its actually really fun! A door swag, a centerpiece, and some stairway garland, pretty cool. Even with our “buy less, love more” desire for Christmas, there’s still this part of me that feels guilty if I don’t have SOMETHING under the tree or in Ethan’s stocking. He has a gift from grandma to open, of course (though we realized its a DVD and we don’t currently own a DVD player! Scratch that- an angel brought us a DVD player ) And I will probably get some oranges in my produce bin that week to put in his stocking. I know its all the same to him, it’s just my own feelings about not getting him some super cool fire truck or something, lol. The good news is that our bills will be paid, and we’ll be going to Florida a few weeks later, so it’s all worth it!

It is somewhat surreal for people of my generation to truly grasp the idea of not having a surplus. We do pray together every night for continued provision, so we can live paycheck to paycheck until we’ve paid our dues, so to speak. Last month, we began to to do a lot more random meals at home, like black beans and rice or lentil stew. Last night, the hearty cuisine was straight from the produce bin: sauteed potatoes, kale, and carrots (you won’t believe how good it actually was! When a 3 year old will eat all of his kale and your husband wonders why there are no “seconds”, you know you’ve scored (or they’re in cohorts to make you think you have!).

It is all very good to do, but boy are there times that I feel like there is a wild animal in me wanting to get to any place with a peppermint mocha or similar “treat”. I figure I’m addicted to three things when that happens: caffeine, sugar, and spending. But I try to stay encouraged here and there for the progresses we have made, such as our dependence on a vehicle. It has been ONE YEAR since we have gone completely carless, using mass transportation, bikes, car-sharing programs, and good ol’ fashioned legs to tote our family of 3 (almost 4!) around the city. It has actually been easier than I thought it would be, esp once we learned to rely less on mass transportation (waiting 20 minutes at night for a bus to take us 1 mile was a pain in the rear, but we did it all the time when we first tried this last year. At this point, we expect to do a LOT more walking, and take the bus less than once a week, which is much better.) There are times I can’t STAND it, like the times about once a month that I miss an appointment or event at church because of our lack of vehicle (which usually is really about our lack of planning or money – for the bus or a zipcar). But when I remember that even with our previous car completely paid off, we saved $2,400 this year on the cost of insurance and gasoline! (That’s a hefty amount in our income bracket!) Imagine getting a 2,400 tax break, would you pass it up? (BTW, Obama- you should provide ENORMOUS incentives in tax breaks for those who have gone carless. I mean, come on!)

The best we can hope for is God’s continued provision for our most basic needs, while honing in the spending, the grocery bill, the frequency of counseling, the frequency of preschool, etc. We know it builds character to pay your bills, pay down your debt, one paycheck at a time, if at all possible. When we do the right thing, it always seems to work out (like selling hubby’s xbox for plane tickets, which was our only dvd player, and then last night the 3 of us got to snuggle under a blanket and watch Charlie Brown christmas special on network television -with our antenna, lol). When times are tough, it usually brings the family together to think of more creative and meaningful things to do together, so I really have a lot to be thankful for.

I will be picking up my last small paycheck today until after the New Year, so I only expect it to get even more bleak as the holidays approach, but I trust that it will work out. Can’t you tell I’m being very optimistic?! (All that counseling is paying off, LOL)

Adios for now -