A few years ago we "started" the Dave Ramsey plan... note the word "started". We never finished. We got debt free minus the house and the, um, well, you know, the credit card. In truth we never decided to live within our actual means.
I take full responsibility for this because my husband works long hours and (naively) trusts me with our finances. I discovered garage sales. Woe is my pocket book.
So here we are again attempting to be realistic with our finances after a lovely "come to Jesus" talk that we had to have. You know the kind that I am talking about, the one where there is just nothing left and we had already eaten out for the third time for the week. Yeah, that one. I had heard Dave rake some 40 year old couple about how immature they were for having the income they had and being as in debt as they were. It was shameful and I was the one ashamed.
So, after doing our budget we realized that there would be so much for this and that, sounds good on paper. After forgetting that our sons birthday was just two weeks away we realized that we would have to be spending SOME money, SOMEHOW! Our plan had been to go camping (20+ dollars), had no gas in the van (30+) dollars, and needed one more gift (20+) dollars. Yikes. We simply didn't have it... not even to rob from Peter to pay Paul... darn.
Usually at this point we get depressed, piss and moan, feel ungrateful and so forth. That wasn't going to help us figure out what to do to give our kid a whopping good time and sure wasn't going to help our attitudes. Attitude is everything.
Here is what we decided to do. Camp in the yard. This way we could do it for two nights instead of one. We already have a can of weenies and have some hotdogs in the freezer. Yes. Then we got on ebay and found the overalls that my son requested (I already had a few $ left in our paypal account!) and we already have the Indiana Jones WII game that he requested hidden away in the closet that I proudly bought for $6 this summer. Let me add that my girlfriend forced me to ask the lady to take less for the game which she did... so down from $7 we have our birthday gift.
The only other request that my son had was for a Sherry cake and since we will be camping at home it will be easy to make. Yes!
This scenario led us to realize that I would indeed be home Saturday for the Farmers market and could go down and sell some soap after all! Yes, yes, yes! So see. It can be done with a little creativity. A pinch of good attitude and look what we are going to teach our kids. Home is where it happens! Home is where our heart is.
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