When you look in a mirror at your life are you where at in your life? I am sure you can answer this question nine ways to Sunday and hopefully for some of you are where you thought you would exactly be. However, my husband and I are not where we thought we would be at this point in our lives. Now let me stop you right there we are very happily married and have two wonderful miracles. I am talking about financial stability future, goals, and the dream of my family.
When Christopher and I first got married of course we had the American dream and we thought it would come easily probably just like most young and in love couples. However, reality sets in quickly and the American dream is a lot harder to obtain and there are usually a lot of bumps in the road to get there or even some where close to a dream you have for yourself. Now very sadly early on in the marriage suffered identity theft and for a young couple who is just starting out who has nothing it is really hard to recover if you really recover at all. The case was so bad the police were involved and once your identity is stolen it seems you victim the rest of your life here and there. Now I can blame all our financial problems on identity theft but that would not be beyond fair. My husband and I made tons of mistakes a long the way and up to the really near future. Like most Americans we have debt, I would not say we are not in a combined extreme amount of debt but I guess I would say average. We have one car payment, two credits, student loans and we consolidated the rest. I will not lie we have debt collectors calls or places of payment because of late payment it is humiliating. Now why I said I combined debt is because I personally have a lot of student debts. You see my family was not rich enough to pay for my college and we were not poor enough for me to qualify for financial aid except for student loans. So the price of bachelors degree and master work is sixty thousand plus. So yes I am personally up into my eyeballs in student loan debt.
Now we are a one income family by semi-choice. I am sure people who will look at this and be like if you you both work you will likely get out of debt faster...blah blah blah. I once again will have to stop you right there. All of our bills are paid, are kids are very well taken care of( health care, food, clothes, and so on), we do not qualify for any assistance, and we have a roof over are head. My husbands career comes first and because of his type job it really does make it hard for me at this time to establish my career. So where we are currently stationed all my income would basically go towards decent childcare. I am however always toying with the idea of getting a part time job when my husband is home to watch the kids but that will be for another post and time. I have a very active 2 year old little boy and a precious 9 month little girl who I am lucky enough to stay home with and raise until they are both in school. So if you can imagine our income even though enough is very tight. There has been even a couple of mishaps and without the support of my parents I do not think we would have made it. The thing with being on a tight budget it makes it a very hard to save well for anything. As much as I love my parents it is not there job or place to help us when we were in that type of bind and I was incredibly grateful that they did help but it hurt that we could not help ourselves for that reason. Just like anyone my parents have a right and a reason to spend their hard earn money on what they want and not because I really screwed up my family budget. Now I said early in this blog paragraph that all our bills are paid and they are but I am not being honest with you or me if I do not admit about the mistakes that I have made in the past and how I was helped out of them now can I?
My husband and I decided we no longer want to live like this. Well live like what? Well we do not not have top of the line of stuff, are furniture is old, we have yet to be on a family vacation, and so on. So live like what? We want to no longer have to fear living on such a tight budget if something comes up that we will fail into back thee steps into financial ruin, paycheck to paycheck, in debt, and so on. We would love to be debt free, savings to be proud of, a dream family vacation, own a home, and so on. So what is the first step to this? Well since are bills are paid we decided to explore the frugal lifestyle. Now like any lifestyle change it is something can happen over night for most people and we are no exception. The point of being frugal is to understand the cost-per-use and the longevity of a purchase. Live below one's means to accumulate your nest egg, dreams, values, and the good life. Living and embracing the frugal lifestyle you will be able to live honestly and have your priorities in order. I hope you plan to follow me as I explore this adventure for my family from a mom and wife who is truly starting well from the beginning.
So here is to homemade laundry soap ...well again we will revisit that post to looking in the mirror and where we want to be.
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