Going for Not Broke

With tons of work due, I had the chance to get a little overtime as the holidays approached, a rarity for me. I was looking forward to being able to have a little extra that can be sent toward my bills. But, that's not how it all worked out. Instead, I had emergency surgery, thanks to a very angry appendix, and wound up missing a week of work. I have no idea the cost of the surgery, the resulting hospital stay, follow-up visits to the doctor and other connected expenses, but it's a far cry from the extra I thought I'd be sending toward my debts. Oh, and then my oven went out. Yep, my budget plans for the next few months have taken quite a hit. My short-term goal is simple, to make it through the next few months without charging. Hopefully the surprises end there. Oh, and Happy New Year to all.

I sat among my mom, a couple of her brothers and both of her sisters as they reminisced recently about their childhood. Having grown up in rural Oklahoma at a time and place when most families had their own garden, mom and her siblings laughed as they talked about the foods they ate. My grandma did not buy tomato sauce in cans, boxes of single-serving packs of yogurt and frozen pizzas. She bought gunny sacks of flour, large boxes of non-instant oatmeal and beans. Lots and lots of beans. They got their veggies from their own garden but did little canning, so the greens they ate came from in-season produce only. "We were all skinny back then," one of my uncles said, and his siblings agreed with hearty laughs. I couldn't help but be envious of what my grandma's food bill back then must've looked like. She didn't buy foods in convenient packaging. She bought a limited array of staples for cooking. I doubt she ever heard the phrase, "What's for

$5 and change ... That's how much money my daughter has in her piggy bank. It is also thousands of dollars above and beyond what my husband and I have because of the years we've allowed stupidity to rule when it comes to our finances. To get to the point where we're making decent headway on paying down our debt, I know what we've got to do: Make -- and stick to -- a "no exceptions" policy. In the past, I've found that our efforts to eliminate our debt often get thwarted by the phrase, "Well, just this one time ... ," which is often followed by phrases such as, "we'll dine out," "I'll charge these clothes," etc. If we did, in fact, limit such actions to "just one time," we could still make good headway, but we never do. Instead, making the "one-time" exception just makes it easier to buy restaurant food or to charge clothes or other nonessentials a second time, then a third, and so on.