Some Ups but More Downs

Memorable phrase of the day: "Let me have $20 of regular, please" knowing that would fill my tank.

Gas is now $1.79 a gallon in my area. I never in my wildest dreams ever thought I would see the day again when gas was less than $2 a gallon or that I would pay $2 a gallon for my latest delivery of home heating oil. I definitely have to recommend codfuel.com to any Long Islander who is looking for the best deal on oil delivery. Gone are the days of paying at least $0.80 a gallon extra for the privilege of having a full contract with an oil company that included "free" service calls. We are going to roll the dice on this one considering that we replaced the water heater and the boiler a few years ago.

Sometimes we get so accustomed to a particular level of comfort and service that it takes a bit more than the usual prodding to undergo a regular review of expenses to find savings in the budget. Thankfully, my husband and I are fairly conservative in our expenditure and even more since we are diligently attacking business debt. Mind you, I am not sure that I am going to look back and enjoy this particular factor of my life. I think I would like to live a little sometimes and not be so fanatical about every expense.

After having my job for a couple of months, we released the tight financial reins a little bit to begin the process of replacing some completely worn out, broken and/or missing items in the house. 5 years ago, we bought Ikea in the hope that 5 years hence, which is now, we would move up a step to purchasing more premium items that would take us through the college years. I know I referred to Ikea in a recent post, so you know we were back there realizing that we have to do budget-conscious replacements again and delay once more our desire to find more permanent furnishing solutions. I think I am simply out of touch now with the reality of the amounts of dollars required to do a decent room upgrade; the kind of dollars that I simply cannot afford to spend right now and not sure when.

In light of my layoff on Monday, I am so happy that we stuck to the rule that we only spent what we could afford; cash only, no credit. Granted, we were tempted to splurge on many occasions but we both managed to talk ourselves out of it as usual. This is an area that is never of issue with us, neither of us is ever willing to spend more than the other which I have to state once more is simply not the best way; always being prudent can put the damper on things much too often, I suspect. For instance, traveling is something that I truly love to do and in reality have done so little of it lately other than the typical interstate driving to visit friends and relatives. However, every time I get that crazy notion that I want to actually fly somewhere, something that I haven't done since 2002, I multiply that airfare by 4, consider the hotel and eating costs and talk myself right out of it.

Last weekend, I was optimistic about the future, I had all the ducks in a row; my job would allow us to forge ahead despite the obvious challenges. My husband was feeling a little more "doom and gloom," directly influenced by the financial and business news, which is understandable. I countered that we should have a positive outlook on things since after all we both have jobs. I actually started to consider saving for a trip next year. We decided that when we were comfortable with the dent that we made on the business debt, we were going to go somewhere to celebrate, break our usual mold and surrender our usual penny-pinching selves. Alas it is not to be, yet again. I lost my job first thing Monday morning and he got an email the same day that his company planned to lay off nearly 500 people tomorrow.

Some would say have faith, the Lord works in mysterious ways, or we all have to pay our spiritual dues or we are lucky to be in a better position than many or we are simply lucky just to be alive and be happily married with children, or that we are fortunate to have a house or that we should be just downright grateful for everything.

Ask me again tomorrow what I think about that. Right now, I am definitely having trouble seeing the bright side.