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I forgot how nice it is to be poor.

Last year, we brought in two incomes. Neither of the incomes were large, but they combined to a comfortable amount. Plus, I was tutoring 6-10 times a week, providing us with lots of extra cash. This, combined with the fact that Tom took over the budget, so I no longer had to worry about the in's and out's of our cash flow, provided me with a fairly worry-free year regarding money. And it got to the point where $100 wasn't a big deal anymore. So if I got $15 from tutoring, it just didn't seem like much. And yes, that was nice in a sense, but it made me stop trusting. And it became harder to live simply.

Now, $10 is HUGE. And it can be stressful, but it also demands that we be resourceful. This week provided so many opportunities to eat out, but instead I was forced to be creative with the food that we had. And I did so well! Two large London Broil steaks grilled on Monday provided us with our meals through Thursday: Monday we had fajitas, Tuesday we had quesadillas, Wednesday we had breakfast tacos, and Thursday we had quesadillas again. This also used up all those red peppers I got for $1.29 last weekend. And the rest of the vegetables got thrown into a beautiful chicken pot pie last night, which will feed us for most of this weekend.

Last night, we needed a date, and we couldn't afford to eat out. But we were resourceful, using the gift card to Starbucks that Rachel sent me for my birthday to have a study date (everyone, go try the salted caramel hot chocolate--so yummy!). Tom studied for his class, I graded two sets of papers, and it was free. Then we rented a movie and came back to eat our chicken pot pie. It was a great and cheap evening.

As much as we tried to live simply even when we didn't need to (it is obviously better to live like this all the time and save the rest), we didn't do a very good job with it. Last year was painful in a lot of ways, and it resulted in us being a little too undisciplined with our finances. We still saved, and we still gave, but we didn't cut corners as much as we should have. It is really hard to cut corners if you aren't forced to, and we kind kind of sucked at it.

But now we are learning to cut corners like champs, and it is so much fun to work together as a couple. And so nice to have to trust the Lord to come through for us on a daily basis. He has come through, every single day. And that is beautiful to watch. Of course, the next time I blog I will probably be terrified about our finances. But today I am so thankful for the opportunity to trust.

Comments

  1. Sommer West, MPHOctober 7, 2008 at 6:51 PM

    Way to be a corner-cutting champ! I wish we had a store like the one you mentioned with the good produce prices.

    Miss you Mrs. Coupon Queen!

    ReplyDelete

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