Still on the road to recovery from joblessness. Monday will
be the first time in our 4.5 year relationship that both wife and I are fully
employed at the same time.
Last night, wife spent time sitting on the kitchen floor
working on a budget. I was browning
ground turkey for manwiches, trying not to be, well, negative me. I failed.
Wife: So the way I want to do it is that after all the
bills, we’ll have 60 a day to spend on gas, groceries, hair, whatever. We just
have to keep track of the one number each day. If we know we have groceries or something coming up, we cut down on spending for a few days before.
Me: I like that it’s one number rather than trying to keep
track of gas budget, food budget, entertainment budget, and so on.
Wife: What’s wrong? (She has a sense)
Me: Well, This is your fourth budget now in three days.
Wife: Yeah. So?
Me: We’ve never been good at sticking to budgets.
Wife: So why don’t we try this one?
Me: Because I know us. Diets, working out, that time you
wanted to do a load of laundry every day, each time it lasts for about four
days.
Wife: Why do you have to be so negative?
Me: I’m sorry. We’ll try this.
Wife: I mean, shit, I’m just trying to set up a system here.
Me: I know.
Wife: God.
Me: I’m sorry. I just…
Wife: What?
Me: Well, I think a big difference between now and all those
other times where making a budget didn’t work is, well, we were fucking poor.
Wife: Yeah.
Me: You can set all the goals you want, but if you don’t have
enough to cover basic needs like rent, food, gas, and whatnot, it just won’t
work.
Wife: I know.
Me: But you know what?
Wife: What?
Me: We’re going to be OK now. We’ve both got jobs. We’ll have
enough coming in for necessities, debts, and can even save money for
emergencies. For the first time in our lives together, we don’t have to be in
survival mode.
Wife: …
Me: I know.
Wife: I’ve never had that. I’ve been in suvival mode since
high school.
Me: And you don’t know any other way of life.
Wife: No.
Me: It’s scary.
Wife: Yes. (Starts to cry)
Me: I’ve been waiting for that to happen. It finally hit
you. It hit me yesterday.
Wife: Yes. But the thing is, we aren’t there yet. We’ve got
to get to June. And can you just let me be in survival mode a little bit?
Me: Transition survival mode?
Wife: Yeah.
Me: Absolutely.
Wife: It’s hard to let it go.
Me: I know.
Wife: I’m also scared about us. We’ve never been together
when things are going well.
Me: I know. It’s scary for me too.
Wife: I’m having to make up things to worry about with you. Like
you getting into a car accident, getting cancer, finding another woman – pretty
much anything that ends with me losing you.
Me: Okaaay…
Wife: I now it’s nuts, but I can’t stop it.
Me: Well, It’s hard to stop worrying, and now that we don’t
have to worry about where rent is coming from, you have to put that worry
somewhere.
Wife: It sucks.
Me: We’ve been through so much shit. We don't know how we'll be with each other during the good times.
Wife: I know.
Me: We’ll figure it out. I promise I won’t go anywhere. You’re
stuck with me, buckko.
Wife: OK.
It's definitely hard to make the transition from flat broke to somewhat comfortable. It's like how the body reacts to food when it has been malnourished. suddenly it wants to hold on to all the food it gets because it expects to be starving again.
ReplyDeleteMe, on the other hand, whenever I get money my brain reacts like this: "Is that money? OMG we have to spend it NOW! Let's go to the store! We need one of these, and one of those, and some of this. We don't need that right now but we probably will eventually so we should get it now while we have money because we might be broke again when we finally need it."
And that's why my money is always gone within 7 days after payday.
We've definitely had those moments. Hey, we just got 100 we weren't expecting, lets go to a movie and continue to neglect the need to change the oil on the car! Or some other times: Let's get a rotisserie chicken rather than a $5 family pack of thighs that we cook ourselves! It's amazing how fast it goes, which is why we are trying to downgrade our alert level from scared to simply cautious.
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