Week 15 of 52 - A pleasant surprise!

As a government employee, I truly anticipated I would begin Week 15 on furlough.

In fact, we’ve been anticipating this furlough a while.  A few weeks back, we paid off our smaller debt and then put our debt snowball (baby step 2) on hold.  We didn’t want to face an unpaid furlough with only our baby step one emergency fund.   With storm clouds looming on the horizon, we reluctantly put away our colored markers.  

I’m thankful that today, I have dusted off those markers and tomorrow, I can go to work!  I am more motivated than ever to continue our debt snowball particularly since the storm clouds may revisit during 2012 negotiations.

Despite the potential impact to my personal finances, I do want to see our government reel in our debt issue.  After all, if we as individuals are trying to live below our means, shouldn’t we as a nation at least live within our means?  I could better visualize our nation’s debt problem after listening to DR’s rant during the first hour of his February 16^th show.  He read an email from Joe Q. Public with these facts:

• ·         We make $58k each year, yet we spend around $75k each year.
• ·         We have $327k in credit card debt and pay almost $10k in interest each year on this debt.
• ·         We decided to get our spending under control and spend only $72k instead of $75k!

According to him, the ratios were similar to how the government spends each year.  So while that person might be moving in the right direction to spend $72k rather than $75k, the budget still needs major trimming just to break even, let alone make progress on the debt.

Perhaps, we could dissect his math or argue now is not the time.  But when is the time?  It reminds me of our personal budget – now was not the time to deal with our student loan debt, after all, in a few short years, we would be free of diapers and childcare bills, THEN we would deal with the debt.   Meanwhile, we would fall short of other financial goals because we hadn’t devised a budget that truly addressed our spending needs of today, aggressively reduced the debt of yesterday, and planned for the future.

 It hasn’t been easy and it isn’t always fun.  Right now, I would rather be making a deposit on a vacation rental than squeezing the budget for extra student loan payments.  But I know if we stay the course, we can take a future vacation without credit card payments that follow us home.

I purposely chose to look only at the mathematics of this debt situation because I don’t want to spark a debate about how the budget should be reduced.  I loathe debating things I can’t change.  Instead, I save my debating skills for things that I can truly influence such as how toilet paper should be put on the holder.   Or how often air conditioning filters should be changed.  Besides, the fact I have lived beyond my means and accumulated debt probably means I'm not the best person to tell the government how to manage their budget.

So I sit here tonight, very thankful for the opportunity to work for another paycheck, live in this free country, vote for our leaders, and bow my head in prayer for all of them.

For this week’s photos, I've been consumed by digging in my flower beds instead of shooting with my camera so here are some quickie shots.

My little guy who is pulling up everything in sight, including us…

My toddler who refused to avert his eyes from Sponge Bob for a photo, no matter what I tried to do…
(Like the beach towel? My stain-proofing furniture measure).

Edit 4/18:  This brought a question or two, so let me clarify - if I need him to do something, he doesn't get the choice of refusing me.  Well, he has the choice and the consequences if he chooses not to do so.  But if I'm sticking a camera in his face five times a day, he gets the choice of whether to participate or not.  This is my hobby, not his, besides who truly wants a photo of a scowling 3-year old?  And yes, we are reevaluating our television choices (she says with a sheepish grin).