You are on a path. It has taken you all this way to where you are now. It may have been rocky at some points and smooth at others, typical life crap. You have been walking this path for many years and around many different turns. So why would you change it now? Why not just continue, I mean, it has taken you this far and you seem no worse for wear, right?
Welcome. Your story may be different, but your path is the same.
With the relocation to California, it brought to light a lot of things. Mainly, that we had zero funds for such an adventure. There was no emergency account. No savings of any type. All we had were credit cards and loans to work with. Not exactly the preferred method for doing anything.
This wasn’t completely our fault. Well, yes it was, but not for the reasons that you might think. During the summer of 2016, I began a plan of paying off everything to include credit cards, loans and any outstanding debt. I had surmised that at my blistering pace (hardly) that I may be able to have all of our credit cards paid off by Christmas that year and only a couple of loans would be left going into 2017.
I had consumed all of our minuscule savings to put toward our bills while making every effort to use as much money from our paychecks to pay everything down as fast as I could. I had momentum.
I was cruising along when we had a family medical emergency. Nothing life threatening, but it certainly had to be dealt with right there and then.
Then we started to notice some water damage to our roof.
Then my daughter’s car needed some repair.
Before we knew it, I was going backwards, not forward like I had been before. Issa ok. Just a setback I said.
Jump ahead a little to when I got the position in California. This was something that we all wanted and we were excited that it was finally happening. Our excitement was short lived when we realized that we didn’t have any money to move let alone put down on a house. Issa ok, we’ll get through it I said.
So, I take out a loan so that I can have some money in the bank and ready for a down payment. Only, that money ends up going to things that we hadn’t planned for, like repairs, painting and small upgrades to our house so that it can be more sellable. A down payment and security deposit on a rental house in California. Moving truck and fuel to get our mass amount of stuff across state lines.
But we’re here now, and my job pays me more than I made in Arizona, so issa ok I said.
My wife gave up a great job in Arizona but has picked up a job here in California. However, it pays less than half of what her Arizona job did. My daughter decided to return to Competitive Cheer at what seems to be THE most expensive Cheer Gym in California. My son is racing motocross and contrary to what we had access to in Arizona, costs me more than $60 each and every time we set foot on a motocross track. So ironically, it’s not the “California high cost of living” that is breaking me down financially, it’s my children and their hobbies. They need to get jobs.
So we went from doing pretty good and paying things down, to wondering where all the money went before our next paycheck. The expenses are mounting daily and we are taking care of most if not all as soon as they hit, so we’re not behind. But we are not comfortable, yet.
We cannot keep going the way we are. We are trying to maintain a lifestyle that we are accustom to yet we cannot support it financially.
Or can we?
How would we know? We don’t have a budget. We don’t ever keep track of our income let alone our expenses. We truly have no clue whether we can afford the things we do and the things we buy from a day to day basis. That’s pretty friken scary if you think about it.
It’s not that we can’t afford our lifestyle, it’s that we just don’t know for sure. Even if I was to win the lottery, the money would be blown without ever really knowing where it went. We have no measure, no gage. I only see one way out, and it’s the direction that we should have done many years ago. Yup, the only way I see that we can get control of our finances is with a budget.
Hang on people, it’s going to get weird…..
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