Poised

Image found here

This week is passing slowly.  All three kids are here all the time and my mom and step-dad are staying with us as well.  I love everyone, yada yada yada.  BUT, the kids are driving me a bit nuts, more so because I know they are driving my mom nuts and that stresses me out.  My mom has early onset dementia of some sort, we're still trying to puzzle out if it is Alzheimer's or something else.  Any change in her routine is difficult, and being here, with three kids bouncing off the walls has her completely frazzled.  I encouraged them to stay at a hotel so that she could get quiet time away from us each day but the idea of that upset her too so we squeezed them into the house and as of last night my mother was making a whole variety of charming comments about how unruly the kids are and, by implication, how terrible we are as parents.  I constantly remind myself that her perceptions are impaired.  Not to mention that she's never been in a house with three active and physical kids before (I was an only child and a quiet bookworm at that).  Yes, they chase each other, yes, they wrestle, yes, they shoot each other with nerf guns and shout and screech and are generally rambunctious at times.  And yes, they are normal kids.  But my mom doesn't get that, and I can't be angry with her about it.  And it just generally sucks to watch her deteriorate and to miss the Mom who isn't there anymore.  My new blended family never knew her before this disease, they never knew my real Mom and that makes me terribly sad. 

I'm taking lots of deep breaths, and abiding. I'm trying to stay focused on the meals and the mess and the logistics of it all one hour or two at a time.  I know the week will come to a close, I'm looking forward to a break on New Year's Eve when we will escape to a party and leave my folks and the kids (and my step-mom who is also coming over, don't worry, no drama there) to fend for themselves.  And then the weekend will wind down, my folks will go home, two of the three kids will go to their mom's house, and then we will be back to normal and I can have table space and mental space to sit down and start working towards Financial Peace.  Our class starts January 9 and I can't wait.

We've done pretty well this holiday season.  We gave the kids clothing and cash and we've been talking a lot about wasteful spending and they've done well.  They even donated to our efforts to help some friends adopt a little boy with down's syndrome from a formerly communist country (www.hopeforian.org).  We didn't do much in the way of gifts for each other since we just had our wedding two months ago.  DH did give me a couple of books and we gifted each other the Financial Peace Kit. I'm baking today to have something to take when we visit my Dad and his wife this afternoon.  We incurred no debt for Christmas and except for a vet emergency a few months ago have been faithful to our commitment to not use credit cards at all.  I know the next step is to actually close the accounts but I think we'll need some support from our FPU classmates to help us actually take that step.  Our baby emergency fund is funded though, maybe if we beef it up a bit it will feel safer. 

We turned off our fancy premium digital HD cable and returned the Comcast DVR.  We now only get their highest speed internet which comes with 23 basic cable channels.  We bought a ROKU box for $80 and we spend $12 per month on Netflix streaming and DVDs and $8 per month on HULU Plus so we can stream tons of internet video content to our TV. We also gave up our landline.  The only people who called us on it were pollsters and telemarketers anyway.  We took our $200 per month Comcast bill and now with Comcast and the streaming subscriptions we are right around $50 per month total.

I signed us up for e-mealz (http://www.e-mealz.com/, sign up based on your favorite grocery store and they give you a menu of dinners for the week and a shopping list based on that week's sale items) and shopped with it last week while planning meals for 7 people in the house.  We spent a total of just over $200 and the receipt showed a savings of $57.00 based on all the sale items. I'm very excited about continuing with that going forward. I made a roast in the crock pot yesterday that the kids actually LOVED.  We're eating at my Dad's tonight and I've got everything ready for Beef and Vegetable soup for tomorrow and then a hamburger dish Saturday  night (my folks have promised the kids take out pizza for new year's).  That is all a huge improvement over the OMG it's 6:15 and I have no idea what I'm feeding the family let's go out for Mexican moments we usually have all too often.  And since I'm getting the Publix Low-Fat menu on e-mealz AND cutting out the emergency Mexican food and emergency Chinese food and emergency Pizza it will be good for our bottom line AND our waist line!

Everyone in the house is still sleeping, the children somehow dodged cleaning the kitchen yesterday so I can't see the countertops, and I need to get on with the day.  I feel better after writing this though, thanks for being out there blogosphere!

Baby Steps

Photo by mistybliss

Baby steps.  Such a tried and true concept, so universally appealing and applicable to so many concepts. Long distance hiking. Taking control of your finances.  Paying off debt.  Working through the files on your desk after a few days off.  Tackling a complex legal motion or brief. Organizing exhibits for trial.  Cleaning the kitchen.  Teaching your children all the little things that you hope will make them happy and productive and capable of mature relationships someday. Getting out of your own way.  These can all be accomplished with baby steps.  

I'm feeling worn down a bit today.  It was a crazily intense holiday weekend with family in town and so much to be done around the house. It has been a nice Christmas, don't get me wrong.  There are some facets of this holiday that I'm very very happy with.  But at the moment I"m wishing I could make a big sweeping motion to clear all the details out of the way.  I'm drowning in little notes to myself, envelopes that need to be opened and attended to.  Clients and children and parents and pets and friends that keep needing things.  And I love them all (well, not ALL of my clients) and I want to do right by everyone but I feel like all the baby steps in the world aren't quite enough to accomplish it all.

But who is setting that standard? Oh......I am.  I'm cornered by complexities. If I can focus, and discipline myself to tame them a bit, I know that it will FREE me. No, it will free US.  Because I am an US.  I am blessed with a husband who is willing to walk and stumble and run and fall and leap with me.  If we can tackle the stack of scary envelopes and obligations and grocery store ads etc. and turn them into a written budget with a debt snowball I KNOW that by reducing the scary complexity to a simple system that we control will equal FREEDOM from worrying that there is something I'm missing, something I forgot, something I am failing at so quietly I forgot to notice, or chose not to notice. 

I need a dayhike, at least a dayhike. We need the promise of a night in the woods before another entire season passes, even if it's cold.   We need to breath easy for a day with nothing more pressing on our minds but the next mile on the trail and the next water source to think about.  At least for a couple of hours.  It's a reset button, not a baby step but a massive sweeping wind that clears out the debris that isn't worth tripping over.  And then, the path will be ready  for our naked little baby feet all over again. 

Driving to the trailhead

Original Image from HERE

So, I'm almost done with Financial Peace, the book.  Last year we started to get off the ground with this but got complacent again when I started making more money and we had a few months where things were relatively easy. I've read tons of articles, forums, blogs, and listened to the radio show.  I am looking forward to taking the actual classes beginning next month.  The material is taught via video but then there are small group exercises and support and THAT is what really appeals to me.  I can rationalize my way right into trouble every time if I don't have actually live physical people challenging my thinking.  

So, I am being mindful and preparing myself for the new year, understanding that some of the lunches and dinners and things we are doing for the season will be a thing of the past once we get intense about the budget.  I can imagine it, but not really understand yet what that will feel like. But I think the key will be to focus on each step, on each micro decision of the day.  Pack a sandwich, don't go to a restaurant.  Put on a sweater, don't turn up the heat.  Drink water for free instead of soda which costs money AND health.  It's those little steps that make up every long journey......this is just one long trail on the way to another right?

The beginning

This blog will be focused on two goals, a relatively short term goal of living debt free and a long term goal (at least a decade away) of thru hiking the Appalachian Trail. I discovered the magic of backpacking thanks to my new husband (I just remarried) over a year ago and I'm hooked. We did two nights on the AT last Spring with family and friends and we've done some other trips, just the two of us. I'm hoping to spend at least a week on a trail sometime over the next year to continue testing the edges of my envelope. We were blessed with lots of REI gift cards at our wedding and I have the gear and the will but not the time or money. That's where the short(er) term goal of living debt free comes in.

It may seem strange to imagine how they are related but they are inexorably intertwined. At the moment, we have too much debt. We make good money and are gradually paying it down but we are not focused enough. We both carry weight from our previous marriages and we've added to it since we met. Both of our incomes are variable which makes it tougher to plan but we have to get focused NOW. Because, continuing as we are, treading water only, will keep our long term goal a distant dream forever. Obviously there is planning involved in taking 6 months off from your regular life and disappearing into the woods. There is simply no way we could carry our current debt load from the trail, and if we sit and just see how things play out we will always have a debt load.

So I'm keeping this blog to help me be accountable and to track our progress. I'm ready to unload the creditors, and free my back to carry only what I need. Food,shelter, my relationships with the people who matter. I am reading Financial Peace by Dave Ramsey, we will be starting FPU next month. I think it will take us a few years to get out from under the debt including my student loans and possibly even the house but then we can spend the balance of the next decade saving and planning and will be FREE to hit the trail when our youngest turns 20.

Here's to hiking your own hike, in all things.