The Unbearable Weight of Nothing

Tonight, we went out to buy my 7 year old some new shoes. The kid is growing like a weed! We were excited because it wasn’t going to cut into our budget by much since we have been saving all of our receipts from Laurie’s, which gives you 5% back for every dollar you spend. Armed with my $37 in receipt money, we bundled up the kids and headed out for the mall. When we got there, it was eerily quiet. I guess we’re not the only people too broke to shop! Then, we got to Laurie’s and something wasn’t quite right. The hoochie dresses in the window nearly stopped me dead in my tracks. Where’s my kids’ shoe store? I must have been making a face that spoke of disapproval to say the least, as the clerk in the hoochie mama store glared at me. Sorry hoochie mama store clerk. We confirmed with the directory that Laurie’s hadn’t just moved to another location in the mall either. I looked around at the other options and none sounded as good as “free shoes at Laurie’s” so I just pouted and let Jeff take the lead. He directed us to Dick’s Sporting Goods where unbeknownst to me, they actually have wide width shoes. The whole reason we shopped at Laurie’s is because the people there seem knowledgeable and because my boys both have wide feet. Yes, the Dick’s shoe salesperson knew nothing about measuring feet (“Oh yea, they look kinda wide, I guess, but not too bad.” Um what?) But thankfully, I’m not a moron. I can feel my kids’ feet and tell if a pair of shoes fit, right? Besides, he’s 7! He’s not 1. He can simply tell me if his shoes are comfortable or not. Done. We spent $30 on a new, namebrand pair of kicks for our boy. We will save the receipts for the next time one of the kids needs a new pair of shoes and make the drive out to their sister store, assuming they all haven’t closed. With this economy, I wouldn’t be surprised.

After the kids were in bed, my husband and I were talking. I had been feeling a bit down all day about our financial situation. I feel like such a bad mom. No, I’m not extravagent in any way, but I definitely could be more frugal in a lot of ways. Because I haven’t been, we have zero savings. Our oldest is 11. That’s 5 years away from driving and 7 away from college. The 7 year old is only 3 1/2 years behind for both. We have got to get this debt under control! Scratch that. We have got to not only get rid of all debt, but have a substantial savings in place for when these things happen. 5 years is going to go by so quickly. How can something that is essentially nothing weigh so much? My neck hurts at the end of the day from carrying around all of this emptiness. Do I have anything to show for it? Well, I have a house. It isn’t mine yet, though, is it? And I have 3 healthy, beautiful children, but wouldn’t they be just as healthy and beautiful wearing Goodwill clothing? Of course they would. I often say what a selfless job motherhood is. There are days when I get absolutely no time to myself. This is not a complaint and I wouldn’t change it for the world. They are only little for so long. I love my kids so much and gladly give them my everything. I just wonder if I’ve been so busy trying to be their world today that I completely forgot to invest in their futures.

At this point, I think I’m going to feel guilty no matter what. I made the choice to stay at home with the birth of our daughter. I’m enjoying it so much too! The problem is the lack of an income obviously. I worked full-time up until the end of my pregnancy and planned to go back when she was 3 months. I actually did go back to work for two days before telling my manager that I just couldn’t do it. My decision was made also because of our lack of a natural choice sitter. Both our mothers work, my grandma has too many other obligations, and honestly–I just don’t trust a lot of people with my children. My daughter also happens to be the neediest child I’ve ever encountered. She wants to be held constantly and had a few issues with food intolerances and reflux. It just worries me to leave her with anyone that doesn’t truly love her. I’m patient with her and hold her all day because I love her. If I had other children to watch, I’m not sure how that would work. The good news is that my daughter is getting better and better everyday, so there will be a time when I will feel safe leaving her in the care of someone else so I can start pulling more weight financially. Until then, I just have to be as frugal as humanly possible. This is doable. In looking at the numbers earlier, it looks as though we will be able to pay off a substantial amount of credit card debt by May, and have the rest paid off *hopefully* by end-of-year. In the future, I hope to not be so myopic about our futures. Yea yea…carpe diem, but please carpe that diem in a mindful, frugal way.

Meanwhile, check out this awesome list with 50 ways to save money a girlfriend told me about; http://kidsactivitiesblog.com/save-money/

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