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This post is going to be unabashedly honest.

I found out today that my dental check up tomorrow (cleaning and x-rays, the first one in two years) will cost a minimum of $250. I got them to agree to let me pay only $50 tomorrow and bill the rest so I can come up with that amount over the next 30 days. I told them, truthfully, that I don’t have $250 in all of my bank accounts or cash combined.

Then I went into my Vivian rampage and started printing out budget and income calculators and trying to figure out what planet I am on that we are always so flat broke.

First of all, we make less than I thought we did, and spend like we do. IF both my husband and I work at full capacity, we will gross around $3,600 a month. After taxes, we have $2,900 to use. Without going into the details, my rent and minimum monthly debt payments alone add up to $2,100. So we have $800 left.

$800 for gas and electric, internet access, cell phones, groceries, childcare, bus passes, savings, healthcare, clothes, haircuts, what have you.

After necessities that are not in my control come out, such as gas/electric/cell/internet/bus, we have $100 left.

Yeah. $100 dollars for 4 weeks of groceries? Since we don’t plan on eating brown rice, drumsticks and water everyday, that’s a tad impractical.

In fact, I looked closer at groceries, trying to see if I could narrow it down and trim and figure out what I need to get our basic foods each week, (this is an area I am not willing to scrimp much on, as you are what you eat and health is top priority). With the grocery calculator, I can’t see how we could spend less than $100 a week on groceries, let alone $100 a MONTH!

I know families make even less than this and make ends meet. I don’t know if they pay 1,100 a month in debt though. Sometimes we try to be frugal and other times we just give up, but we have managed to stay on top of bills for the most part. What’s the most disheartening is when it comes time to address the fact that my wisdom teeth have hurt me daily for years and that I had cavities I never filled TWO years ago at my last dental appointment, that NONE of us go for regular health checkups, not even Lil’ E, and I haven’t seen an GYN since his birth nearly 3 years ago, I am just at a loss as to how to actually survive.

Which reminded me why I hate to budget. All I see is failure and impossible numbers. So instead we just kinda keep going, hoping that we don’t borrow any new debts and that some how a little extra money will come in here and there to help us break even. Not a very nice way to live, though.

I don’t know if there is any solution to the situation. Hubby has been looking for a part-time job for hours every single day and hasn’t gotten any interest. He’s had about one interview a month but never a second one. It’s all just quite depressing, actually!

So give me some advice, some words of encouragement, because having to deal with crap like this AND get all of my hours in AND try to raise a 3 year old simultaneously has left me pretty bummed today.

(don’t email me. see comment button? its calling your name…)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 21st, 2008 at 5:33 pm and is filed under Current Events, The Debt Drama