Why now?

Before I start getting into the nitty gritty of the spending and the budgets, I want to give some backstory into why I am motivated, how we got here, and the sacrifices that I have resolved to make this year.

First and foremost, I need to mention that I have an anxiety disorder and I am prone to panic attacks. This is important because it was ultimately a panic attack that got my butt in gear. I am not on medication or seeking therapy at this time. This is a battle I have fought my whole life, and my first memory of money involves what I realize now was a panic attack. I was probably around 8 years old at the time, so I am not kidding when I say that this is a lifelong battle. It also illustrates my unhealthy relationship with money. I was going to spend the night with a family friend's daughter, and I was excited about it. We were going to go to Toys R Us, and this was right after they had opened the first Toys R Us here, so it was a really big deal to go. I knew we were going, but for whatever reason I did not feel like I could ask my mother for money for shopping. I do not know or remember now why that was. I had a bag of coins, mostly pennies, in my room ( I never got an allowance - My mom usually just got us what we needed or gave us money when we were going out, which is what makes this story so strange, but I have always had a problem asking for money, and also accepting it, which has led to some bigger problems lately, but that is another story). I took this bag with me to Toys R Us and picked out some items there, mostly stickers as I remember. I was so stressed out the whole time because I couldn't just get what I wanted, I wasn't sure exactly how much I had, and I was embarrassed to have a bag of pennies. When I got to the checkout, I had to count out every penny and I was holding up the line. I hadn't known to expect the sales tax, and so I did not have the money to pay for the things I had picked out. I had to put some things back and count it all out all over again.

That night I couldn't sleep. I had a bad feeling towards the things I had gotten and had no enjoyment in using them. I was sick over using all my money. I was embarrassed by the experience. I didn't know when I would ever have any money again (keep in mind, this was maybe $5 in change we are talking about, but to an 8 year old....). I got myself worked up into such a state that the mother came up and I couldn't verbalize to her what was wrong. I think ultimately my mother had to come get me late at night.

I don't think I have ever told that story before. And I didn't really intend to now. But there it is.


Our circumstances have changed recently. I used to be a teacher. I reached a point where, for a lot of reasons I won't go into now, I needed to change careers. I told myself I would teach one more year, but in that year I need to find some other plan. I spent a lot of time soul searching, and suddenly decided to enroll in community college for an accounting program. I kinda feel like I pulled that out of the air, but it really has been the best thing so far. I, as I am finding so many do, assumed my whole life that accounting = taxes. It doesn't. MY JOB HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH TAXES. (I am getting kinda tired of people asking me if I am going to get real busy in January.) I became aware of this as our school bookkeeper suddenly got moved out of the reception office of our school, got her own office, and I started to pay attention to what she did, since I had always just assumed she enrolled and withdrew students, answered phones, and other secretarial duties. I also had to work with her on my program budgets and fundraising and so forth. For some reason, that simple act of her getting an office made her job seem so much more important and interesting.

When I started my accounting program, I knew relatively nothing about accounting. I had a pretty strong math foundation, and had originally been a computer science major in college (but dropped that). I stepped out on faith for probably the first time in my life, and so far it has worked out great. I found I really enjoyed the sort of anal, obsessive aspect of it. After teaching for nearly ten years and all the chaos that brought, I was ready for a quiet, controlled profession. I was the top of my class throughout my program, have a 4.0 GPA there, and finish next week. To do this, I had to sacrifice a lot of my time. I was going on maybe 5 hours of sleep throughout the school year. I left the house at 6:30 am and didn't return til 10 pm. I also took out what now feels like a really large student loan, however I told the school to return any excess (I need to check that they did) and I have been paying toward both my school loans the whole time.

I knew the economy was bad and that this was a huge risk. My last teaching paycheck came in September. I was terrified I wouldn't find another job, and even if I did, I knew it wouldn't pay anywhere near as well as teaching had. I was saving aggressively throughout that time, but when the market tanked and I lost most of the money in my Roth IRA, I dumped all of my savings into my Roth, hoping that it would pay off when the market came back. That's why I only have $2000 in savings now. I started looking for jobs in July and was so blessed because I ultimately got offered two jobs (one after I had already accepted the other). I started the job in October. (And I love it so far, but that's a whole different subject :)

Sometime after that, I started getting hooked on Suze Orman somehow. I am not sure why I happened to start watching her, but she has become my late-night Saturday laundry folding show. I don't always agree with everything she says, but she makes a lot of sense. I started to feel a sense of dread because she recommends an emergency savings of 8 months expenses. We don;t have even one, I think. I also knew our income was going way down because of the job change, and that we were going to have to address our spending at some point. What I finally realized in the midst of the panic attack I had at work the other day - where I came home and told my husband we both had to get weekend jobs and he refused and suggested I go back on medication - was that I have the tools now to look at our finances objectively. I know what an income statement is. I know what a budget is. I know how to balance things. This is what I do for my job now. Why can't I do it for my home? It is harder - because it is personal and it is really hard to look at what you have been spending and what you have been spending it on. When things have to be cut, it leads to squabbles. What I was shocked to find - as I will document here later - is that in October, we spent twice what we made, and I was able to come up with a (rather tight) budget that balances.