Unburdening

I just need to unburden some weight from my shoulders. I don't want to do it via my Facebook status, because although other people read my blog, I don't feel as if I'm letting the whole world know on here like I do on Facebook.

For the last week I have been drying my clothes outside, and while this is a nice eco-friendly thing to do, the real reason I'm doing it is to try to save some money somewhere. By two weeks into the month we were out of money. We had gas money left, but that ran out a little over a week ago, and so I have been home-bound since Sunday. I don't understand what goes wrong every month. We seem to keep cutting back on expenses and somehow keep having less and less money. We did have some medical expenses pop up this month, and since we can't keep our heads above water for normal expenses, we definitely don't have the saving account that we should have. I've reverted to doing dishes by hand as well, instead of using the dishwasher. I hate doing dishes. But, oh well. I'd love to get to the point where I'm stockpiling groceries and necessities so that we're not spending so much on groceries each month, but I can't even get us enough food to last us a month, let alone stockpile. Sometimes I struggle with being annoyed that my husband gets fed good food for lunch at work--all you can eat--while I may completely skip breakfast and lunch because there is nothing to eat or because if I eat something it means I won't have enough to feed my daughter for the rest of the week. How did we do this to ourselves? Thankfully, we are now credit-card free so we can't dig a bigger hole. But it was nice having that cushion when we got ourselves in sticky situations like this. But because we took advantage of that cushion too often (and because doctors charge WAY more than they need to) we are stuck in this deep abyss, and it seems we will never get out. I was discouraged yesterday when I read a magazine article about a couple who did what we've done and took the step to get rid of debt entanglements, and it took them thirteen years to get out of debt! Why did I so naively think that by cutting up the cards the debt was going to start going away? If only that were so. But to think that we could be stuck in this situation for the next thirteen years while we try to dig ourselves back out was almost depressing.

While the financial issues have been a burden, in a small way they have been a blessing. They have forced me to do tasks which help me feel more domesticated--like hang drying laundry. Silly, I know, but tis true.