Friday, September 24, 2010

Cutting Back

Julie and I have had this conversation many times. It goes a little like this:

"I sure wish I could stay at home and care for my kids/house/husband like a lot of other people we see out there."

"Me too. They say if we cut back on expenses, anyone can do it."

Really? Who are the mythical 'they' who say that?

We go on to discuss what, exactly, we could cut out of our lives to make it possible for us to cut our families' incomes in half and still be on this side of poverty.

Anytime someone chirps, "Oh we just stopped going out to dinner, blah blah blah and I was able to quit my job." I sort of want to scream.

This isn't aimed at any particular person. I've heard it A LOT from a lot of different people.

And I guess what I want to know is what more can we cut out?

Tom and decided soon after Alyssa was born to give up cable. We don't drive expensive cars. Heck, I bought my car ten years ago for $10,000. It's been paid off for fives years and has 298445 miles on it. That's no a guess, I actually had to write down the mileage today for a work-related trip so I could get paid $.50 for each mile I drove while on company business.

We don't eat out.

We don't do date night.

We don't go to movies.

Neither of us does girls'/boys' nights out.

We don't use credit cards, so our debt is mostly our mortgage and my student loan, against which I owe just over $4000.

My income goes toward our mortgage and groceries. I don't think we can cut back on either of those things.

Yes, I paid for school pictures this past week. Those were all of $29.

And we do pay for gymnastics classes for the girls. Which is just over $80 each month. But this is our PT for Olivia, so I don't think we can cut back on that. It doesn't feel right to consider it an 'extra' or a frivolous thing on which we're spending money.

We don't even have Olivia in daycare, so that's not an expense we'd lose if I were to quit my job. I pay my mom a miniscule amount to watch her. It's not even fair to call her the babysitter because of the small amount of money she receives from us.

I know that a lot of people in our society do have things on which they can cut back in order to live a simpler, easier life. But honestly, I don't think we're one of those families. I work because I have to. I don't work so that we can take that vacation to Hawaii (hi Lauren!!) each spring. I don't work so that we can have lots of video games, toys, etc. I work because my job provides our family with insurance and it pays our mortgage and buys us groceries. It provides us the luxury of one donut per child each Saturday when we're buying groceries.

So yeah, I lament my inability to stay at home and care for my children as I'd like. I bitch about having to get up every single day before I'm ready. But please believe that we've explored the options and quitting my job just isn't one of them. There isn't anything, at this point, we can cut back on or give up that would leave us enough extra cash to allow for that. And I've obviously not made peace with that fact yet. But I'm trying...sort of.

4 comments:

Lauren said...

Although dang... I wish you were workin for a trip out here! That'd be awesome!!! :)

Probably make work more fun too ;)

Lauren

Anonymous said...

Ugh. I feel the emotion in this post for sure!

You are an amazing mom, and if I were a guy, I'd DREAM of having a wife like you! :) I always wish I was capable of doing as much for my family as you do for yours. I marvel at what you do in the little time you have. I DO stay home and I feel like I don't spend a lot of quality time with my kids. In the end, I believe that's what counts. Quality over quantity.

Love,
Page

Tiffany said...

I feel your pain. I'd love to be able to quit too...but "cutting back"? yeah right. There's nowhere to cut that much!!!

Anonymous said...

I feel your pain..I went through that feeling but you are doing the best you can and that's what matters. Honestly I don't even know how we survive, and I hate having to plan ahead just for a pair of shoes for one of the kids but that's the best I can do. We as parents make the necessary sacrifices to provide for our families. I think your doing great!