Sunday, March 22, 2009

Momentary Financial Panic

About once a month, I go through a momentary panic where I truly believe we're going to run out of money tomorrow, that no raises are coming, investors and managers won't sign Matt, movies won't get made and we'll be left in the dust, broke and heartbroken.

Yes, I'm being dramatic, but at midnight that's about the best I can do.

I worry that we'll have to move back to Seattle. I worry that we'll have to move in with my Dad or his folks and be reliant on others rather than ourselves. I worry that we'll never not be broke, that we'll never stop living paycheck to paycheck. I worry that I'll never stop worrying and yet I'm always hoping that maybe next month, maybe next year, things will be better.

I've been talking about how confident I am about our financial situation but the truth is I'm terrified. Really and truly. I don't know what's going to happen in the next few years. We want a house of our own, and a child. But there's this giant black cloud of graudate student loans in deferement that seems like it will never be paid off. Our monthly bills aren't completely covered, even though we have cut costs significantly. More than significantly. I guess I shouldn't have bought that domain for my new website. And I didn't really need red flats. Shouldn't have gone to Disneyland today (even though we got in for free). See how I make myself feel better? Ugh.

I have to get creative. I have to be confident in the (occasional) fun (on sale/clearance) purchases I do make while sticking to a strict budget. We have to cut our grocery bill even more, and look into buying bottled water rather than continuing with the water delievery service. We've already cut cable and his health insurance payments went down.

I don't meant to whine, but this is definitely a sign of the times. I want to look back on this time in our lives and be proud of the decisions and choices we made rather than thinking What the eff did we DO?

2 comments:

Jenny said...

Would it also make sense to buy a filter (BRIO) picture rather than pay for water? Can you "unsell" the domaine name? Kevin and I have a personal spending allowance of $20 every TWO weeks. That's for non-replacement shopping, eating out, impulse buys, whatever. It can be done, But it's tough. You can do it!

Mary said...

I can't remember the last time I drank bottled water. We do Brita filters and tap.