When You’re Out of Control, Stop

August 8, 2008

When You’re Out of Control, Stop by Kari Breed

Several months ago, my husband and I came across a sale on the sofa we’d been eyeballing and drooling over for the past two years. After giving ourselves a chance to think about it (i.e. we left the store and went home, resisting the temptation to spontaneously shop), we ran back to the store and got it. By some miracle, we happen to have the extra cash, and we prided ourselves on not putting our purchase on credit.

Our rule is: nothing on credit except for absolute emergencies (like the procedure to unblock our beloved Bubba’s bladder). Like many other Americans and Worldians, we have some credit card debt to pay off, which in itself isn’t a problem… if you ignore the wasteful interest rates, the agonizing stress of carrying debt, and the extra cash we put on that instead of elsewhere each month.

In a word, debt sucks.

What ended up really throwing us wasn’t the sofa purchase but the next month’s spending on home improvement items, like tile for the patio floor, seven gallons of paint, a ceiling fan and a light fixture. And then the cat got sick and had to get his bladder flushed out. It seems, sometimes, that things just come up. And that’s where the problem begins. Once you get a little behind and start pushing your bills forward to the next paycheck, it can take a long time to catch up. Add to our list a surprise five-hundred dollar electric bill, rising gas prices, a new rescue kitten needing medical attention, a broken garage door spring and the A/C going on the fritz, maybe it’s not surprising that, even with our decent pay, and even though we had been rockin’ and rollin’ on our bills, we managed to slip behind.

Upon further inspection, I also came to realize that, not only have grocery prices gone up, but we’ve been overspending; splurging on lazy and expensive pre-packaged foods and foregoing old classics that yield leftovers, like homemade spaghetti and chili. Never mind the flatulence.

So, what I proposed we do is stop. For one month, we are going to stop spending as much as we possibly can. Necessities, okay. But beyond that, forget it. That book I want? Nope. That Metallica CD? Forget it. A new Xbox game? Sorry.

You’d think this would stress me out, but, in fact, I feel relieved. All I want is to get back to square one after all these surprise expenses. Simply stopping will give us a chance to do that. It will also give us a chance to catch up on our home improvement projects before adding more things to do, and that, in itself, brings a huge sigh of relief.

Life Lesson: Sometimes all you can do is stop.

Posted in Money