the little void

I wish I could go back in time to when I first graduated from Biola. I'd like to erase a great many things that happened around then but one that really sticks out is that at a time when I was working like crazy, earning decent money and paying only $400 a month for rent, and had little other expenses, I wish I could have handled my finances better.

Everyday on the radio I hear about how hard it is for people to make ends meet. The economy in a "recession". The high cost of living, the cost of gasoline, the high price of food. Its tough out there for the middle class man/woman. One side of my family is having a hard time with it and the other is not. My little family of three males and me (the cats are our dependents even though I can't claim them, speaking of that would kind of be cool, if you adopt an animal from a shelter you can claim the cost of feeding it and keeping it alive on your taxes, man, animals would be flying out of the shelters, or at least you know, walking out of the shelters) is thankfully not a statistic that can be crammed into that area because well, Matt had a good example of financial management growing up and I gave up control over handling our money to him. It was a good idea. Aside from steps we took to save money like how we grocery shop at fresh & easy which is way cheaper than a lot of places and rarely eat out, we switched cars so that I drive the fuel efficient one furthest (which literally saved us 100s of dollars a month), and we wait until we've earned rewards points on our credit card so we can buy things we want on amazon.com.

Still, there is this crazy desire in me to go shopping. I just want to spend money I don't have on stuff I don't need. Its this insane little void you want to just fill with STUFF. Like just quit buying stuff EvY, you don't need that wine rack for the shelves, or the pasta cutter, or the vinegar and wine bottles. Still though, the three cute flats I bought online that were mailed, man, were they worth it to my self-esteem.