Try to relax, honey. Just relax. Concentrate on me rubbing your head. Just try and go to sleep. There’s nothing you can do tonight. We’ll still be just as broke in the morning.
This is what my poor husband chants every night, trying to appease me into just letting go. If even for a little while. Just letting go. Just enough to sleep, to recharge, to try and start again tomorrow.
He tries. Very hard. It doesn’t work.
I get so irate every time I see that monkey-faced buffoon of a president tell us, calmly and authoritatively and all decider-y, that there is no recession. Our economy is fine, he says. Don’t worry.
And on that, my friends, I call BULLSHIT.
Gas in my neighborhood, if you can find any, is $4.05 a gallon. I pay almost $200 a week to daycare. My baby’s formula is $27 a can. He goes through 2 a week. And we got the phone call that his AFO (ankle-foot orthotic) is now ready for pick-up. And it’s not covered by insurance because it’s a custom-made brace.
I remember, when the whole mortgage crisis really started snowballing, sitting back and thinking, “People are so irresponsible, to let their bills get so out of hand.” Oh, poor little naive Sarah. We are not extravagant people. We don’t travel, we don’t shop, and we rarely spend money. And yet? Mere penny pinching is not helping. We are barely afloat. If I were to be perfectly truthful, I would tell you that I cannot see a light at the end of our tunnel right now, a time when we will remain comfortably in the black and not live on overdraft fees.
Our one expense is eating out. We love food too much to not eat out, but we’ve given that up as well. We only have home-cooked meals, unless we’re treated by others, and we take the left-overs for lunch. But even that route? Not fucking cheap. My grocery bills, even with just the essentials to get us through two weeks, easily tops $200.
We’ve been carpooling as we can, but our work schedules are vastly different. Most of my mornings begin by 7:30. His begin at 8:30. He works late enough that it’s a race to pick up the child from the overpriced daycare on the other end of town.
So tell me, Bush, what I’m doing wrong. Tell me how I’ve fucked up my household budget so mightily that the recession is only a personal one, one I’ve inflicted on myself. Tell me how I’ve not done my part to fix the problem that you say doesn’t exist. Explain to me how healthcare is affordable, gas is not unreasonable, and the mortgage crisis is nonexistent. Tell me how this is the fucking American dream.
If this is the dream, it definitely explains my hesitation to fall asleep.
Dude, I give myself that talk everyday.. I would get a job myself to helpout but twould be pointless for any money I earn would automatically go to daycare. Gah. I’m sorry things are bad for you. I know how you feel. My offer still stands by the way.
It is out of fucking control! All of it. One plus coming is cow’s milk is in Binjas near futrue, just a couple more months of the formula! I swear, Id ship you my BM if you werent skeeved by it to save you money.
I spend $120-150 a week on grocerys and that’s not Kroger, people Im talking about sell my soul to the devil himsefl WalMart! Two of us and its that expensive for me to cook for a week. Mike’s car is super old and small a 2 door 1994 Saturn and that bad boy rulz the gas milage, he fills up a 10 gallon tank once every two weeks- that helps. We want a new one but why, its paid for, still running.
Even though we are doing okay, we should be doing GREAT with what Mike brings home… but every fucking thing out there is going up,up.up…….. we aren’t taking Nate home for Christmas this year- Thanks Bush! Ass face.
Christina’s last blog post..Our last hurrah
I’m in a place called Denial. I have had on my to do list for over a month to look at our budget again and the reality is I don’t want to look at our budget because it’s going to say scary things like “You don’t have enough money for a new sweater, or pampers or worse of all WINE”. Bush can suck it.
Yes.
I’m freaking out, too.
We paid for a trip that we can no longer afford… I’d love to have that money back to, oh, I don’t know, LIVE ON. But we’re going on the damn vacation. It’s irresponsible, it’s something we may be sorry for later, but whatever.
Trickle-down has hit me — as a private math tutor, I depend on parents forking out a pretty big chunk of change to help their kid. That has slowed WAY down. Last year, my schedule was full barely 2 weeks into the school year. This year, it’s almost 2 MONTHS in and my schedule juuuuust went over 1/2 booked. My income pays for Alice’s preschool. I’m having to rob from our operating fund to pay for that now, and I hate it. It’s a LUXURY to send her to preschool, I know that. But if my tutoring schedule doesn’t pick up by Christmas, I’m screwed. I’ll have to get a job that pays less and works me harder just to make ends meet, just to have the regularity.
And Estimated Taxes? DON’T GET ME STARTED. My taxes this year are based on LAST YEAR’S INCOME. Last year I tutored a SHITload more, and tutored through the summer, and taught a PSAT prep class. I made more than half what I made teaching, working 10 hours per week or LESS. This year… I’m working about 5 hours, paying the estimated taxes based on LAST year’s income. Which pretty much means that more than half of what I DO make goes straight back to Uncle Sam, since I’m making less than half as much, and estimated taxes are about 40% of what I made last year. In April, I’ll be pleased, because we’ll get a tidy refund for overpayment. But damn if it doesn’t piss me off that I’ll be sending it to VISA in turn to pay all the credit card fees that have amassed because I’ve been paying the fucking ESTIMATED TAXES with the money that should have gone to the CCs in the first place.
Rant all you want. The economy is seriously fucked when people who *aren’t* out of control with their spending are having trouble.
Elaine’s last blog post..*Snort*
Advisors: “Mr. President, you’ve got to raise taxes to pay for this war!!!”
President: “Wait, wars cost money? Well, damn it all!!! Hold on, I know some boys in ‘oil’. We’ll get’er done!”
Preach it! We have cut corners all over crippled creation and are still just squeaking by.
The saddest tale of all is that my Prius, my wonderful hybrid that made me feel as if I’d walked right up to the big fence that surrounds 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and bared my ass for ol’ Dubya’s perusal, is up for sale. The gas mileage is fantastic but we have a truck that’s paid for that I can drive and it has enough room for my massage equipment.
I love my Prius. I love that it gets 45-47 miles to the gallon. I love the size. I love that even though it looks like the nerdiest car ever that I’m doing my little part to save the planet. Now I have to prioritize, and not having a car payment will help my husband and I save our sanity. Sorry, planet. The second I need another vehicle I will only consider those that run off alternative energy sources.
The shittiest part? This war, the gas situation, our government’s refusal to seriously investigate alternative energy sources, has only lined his pockets more. I don’t know how he sleeps at night. Seriously.
I’ll restrain from getting too much into political conversation, but Gena hit on something that irks me when referring to alternative energy sources. What are the alternatives that both parties push alot? Wind and solar. Here’s what kills me….there are so many new solar projects that are being pushed that our lovely Congress has put a f’n 2 year moratorium on new projects while they can study….wait for it…..the ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS!!! Are you kidding me?
The sad part is that neither candidate is worth a crap, so we’re going to be screwed no matter who gets elected, either in the short run or the long run.
The really scary thing is that dispite what people keep saying, I really don’t think we are close to the bottom.
Speculative lending practices and inflated house prices led the need to increase interest rates. Corporations started defaulting/failing.
Infation leads to lower value American dollar, Fed ups the prime lending rate to compensate, slow spending, stablize the dollar. Interest rate goes up mortages go up and people default, and tye cycle starts all over again.
I’ve lost 21% of my 401K so far this year, 7% in just the past WEEK! I am hemoraging money, but I have 30 years to catch back up, God save the people that are close to retirement and taking 20-50% hits.
I make 6 times as much as I did in Huntsville, my car is a little nicer, the place I live is a little bigger, but my spending money isnt anymore then it was back then, if anything its gone down.
70 dollars for a tank of gas I could accept this if I could be offered a good explination, but with oil company’s reporting record profits, and the price of a barrel of oil changing wildly as the price of a gallon of gas climbs to new highs…
I can hold on till November. …if McCain wins I’m moving to Canada…
You are all welcome to join me! (Free health care!)
Sota’s last blog post..Email right in your POCKET!!!!
[...] September 25, 2008 at 9:31 pm (Random Thoughts) (Bush, Finance, McCain, Money, Obama, Stock market) This was actually a response to a post over at The Anvil Tree, but when I was done with it, it felt more like an entire post then a reply. So this is in response to This. [...]