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The Edwards Family Says “NO” To Wasting Money

September 19, 2008 By

Our family sat down last night and had a heart-to-heart talk. Chris and I told the kids exactly what our financial situation is right now, and explained exactly what it’s going to mean as far as extra spending. We’re coming up on the three most expensive months for this family; October is Ryan’s birthday, November is Kaitlyn’s birthday and Thanksgiving, then of course December is Nathan’s birthday and Christmas. Which means that for the next three months (at least), we are going to have to say no to buying things that we don’t really need.

I went to Walgreen’s today for the purpose of buying 1. Pull-Ups, 2. Dish soap, 3. Laundry detergent. Kaitlyn picked up a Ty Beanie Care Bear Lion that was SO cute, and it was $5.99. She was holding it and cuddling it, and it would have been so easy to just throw it in the cart and buy it for her. Nathan picked up this red plastic Halloween goblet, it was only 99 cents, and he tried to convince me that glasses for drinking out of were something we needed. I said no to both items. I did, however, let them each get a Hershey bar which were 2/$1.00. It’s not a perfect system, and I’m not completely heartless. I also didn’t buy US magazine even though I really, really wanted to.

Chris and I really want the kids to understand how to budget their money. Neither of our parents ever sat us down and showed us the list of bills and explained how they were going to get them paid. We don’t see any reason not to explain to kids about utility bills and mortgage payments and insurance payments and setting up a biweekly or monthly budget and making sure everything gets paid on time. And showing them how to save money for special occasions like birthdays and Christmas so that they don’t have to rely on credit cards.

We’re hoping that by the beginning of the year, we’ll be all caught up on bills and be able to start setting money aside for a family vacation next year. We all deserve a really nice vacation at a resort somewhere, especially if we all work together to not pay things we don’t need between now and then. What about you? Are you teaching your kids about bills and budgeting? Do they understand that not buying things they don’t really need now can mean extra money later for something special? Wish us luck on this new endeavor :)

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Where’s that money truck when you need it?

September 16, 2008 By

Well, I’m freaking out a little bit here, people. Yesterday at about 5:15 p.m. I got an automated phone call from Comcast informing me that I needed to make a payment immediately. Except, I didn’t take the call, Nathan did, because the little poop thinks it’s his job to answer the phone now in case it’s one of his eleventy-million friends calling. So he hangs up and says Mom, that was a call from Comcast, you have to call a number to pay the bill. Did he write down the number? No. So I called 1-800-Comcast and got a Customer Service person on the phone, he told me I needed to talk to collections and he transferred me…somewhere. I got voice mail because it was 5:30 by that point, so I left a message.

At 9:01 AM the cable went out. I called Comcast. This time I got a customer service person who had “no idea” who I had talked to yesterday, and claimed that there was no “collections department” for my part of Michigan. Um, huh? So, long story short, I got a supervisor on the line, made the required payment, and now have less than $200 in checking. To last my whole family of five until next Wednesday. Crap crap crap! And yes, I realize that we “could” have lived without cable if necessary, but you try telling my daughter that no, she can’t watch Ni Hao Ki Lan for a week. Good luck with that. So now I’m looking at all my different potential money-getting options. You know, like one of those we’ll-loan-you-money-until-payday-for-only-300% interest kind of places.

I got my husband on IM and told him what happened, and he said let’s plan all the bill payments for the rest of the year. I’m like sure, and don’t forget Ryan’s birthday and my Dad’s birthday next month, Halloween, Kaitlyn’s birthday, Nathan’s birthday, and then Christmas. No, we aren’t going to be crunched for money AT ALL, OMG. I told Chris I would just you know, accept more paid blogging jobs and, I don’t know, sleep LESS. Ack! And again, this isn’t like a dire emergency, I know that, but with everything that’s coming up in the next three months, I’m going to need to be much more careful with money. It’s one thing to have the cable turned off, it’s another thing to lose water or power.

I hate this feeling, always worrying, always just scraping by. My husband works so darn hard and yet there’s just never enough. I wish the dang money truck would just hurry up and get here.

Filed Under: Stuff I think about Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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