Till Debt Do Us Part Does Not Always Apply

Ok so I am a BIG fan of the show Till Debt Do Us Part, Kyle said it is a sick fascination with looking down on others far worse off than me, I on the other hand think it is like a preventative measure. See how bad it really is on the other side of the fence so you stay on your own side, I am sure that if you seen someone struggle with an illness (let's say aids), you would think twice about getting yourself into that kind of predicament, right? Ok so on with the post.

The host Gail Vaz Oxlade has this pie chart she shows couples in order to help them better stay in their budget. Pretty easy stuff right? WRONG. It just doesn't work all the time. I shall tell you why.

Gail's Break Down
Housing - 35%
Transportation - 15%
Life - 25%
Debt - 15%
Savings - 10%

Once again pretty simple stuff, not rocket science. I started using this pie chart this year, to see if I could do what Gail wants her participants to do. I can't. I am a master budgeter, I use coupons and sales to the best of my ability and cannot fit into this pie chart. Life is too big a thing to be left at 25%. The trouble I have is that tithing goes into this category, at 10% of my income that leaves 15% for life. Life in my budget has groceries, rogers bills, Sugar's bills, gifts, laundry, and my own list of personal items I may buy in a month (meds/clothes/etc). How can anyone live on 15% of their income?

Now this isn't so much a problem for me as I don't have debt so I have an extra 15% to play with on top of saving in the housing and transportation categories (so I end up with an extra 42% to play with each month). Now should I eventually have debt (say when I buy a house) and the other categories go up how would Gail propose I pay tithing? Anyways that's my thought for the day, just thought that I would share as I sit here once again doing my budget (being the end of the month and all).

Fabulous Life and Self Entitlement

Ok so lately I have been just fuming with anger over this generations thought process and self entitlement issues. I grew up in a house where money wasn't an object, if I wanted it I got it. Our basement was FULL of toys and movies and Nintendo and anything JPotty and I could want. So I would be a spoiled brat right? Yes I was when I was younger and a bit again when I first got married, but when I was in Grade 9 something happened. I learned about the importance of budgeting and living within your means. I seen my parents struggle to give JPotty and I everything we wanted. I seen life. Now I am all about the budget, I collect coupons to lower the price of EVERYTHING (BBQ sauce was on sale for 87cents and I had a buy 2 get $1 off, so I paid 74cents for 2). K-bot and I work hard at saving our money for long term goals and sacrificing things for the bigger picture (do I really need to drink juice or can I save a couple bucks and put that away for a house? gets K-bot's parents mad). I do have nice things I will admit to that, I mean just yesterday at the mall I got a new ring and 2 Aeropostale hoodies. I will admit to brand names in my life, I am very loyal when I find a brand that is everything I want, I will only wear adaias shoes/bluenotes jeans/aeropostale hoodies. But I don't feel that I need those, or at least new those all the time. I still have tshirts in my closet that have been in there since I was 3.

Now to the self entitlement, I know people who have worked for YEARS and YEARS and have NOTHING to show. They have fabulous extravagant lovely lives with nothing. They are 1 emergency from utter destruction. I don't know why you would trade safety and security of having a savings fund for something as stupid as brand name hoodies and jeans. Are they really going to help you get anything more than too many sex partners and an std? High school isn't the end all be all. I went through without a brand name item and I am fine, I didn't have a lot of friends. But if your friends only like you because you can afford that crap well then they aren't really friends. These young people who buy and buy without thinking of tomorrow have not a clue how life works. I get looked down on all the time (even within family) for not having the brand names and best stuff, but who the hell cares? I will have everything I want after my sacrifice, I will own my own home and have it paid off light years before these kids get it together, I will have a family who can feel secure that should something happen (IE recession/depression) I have prepared during the times of plenty so they will be safe and cared for (can you tell my favorite Bible story is Joesph of Egypt?). These kids don't work and if they do they don't work hard enough, I worked 1 summer and made enough to pay off my 2 years of college. Was it fun? NO! Was it what I wanted to do? NO! Did I want to work till 4am Saturday night and then get up for church at 9am? NO! Did it help me start my life the right way? YES! K-bot and I got married young, REAL YOUNG. I was 19 when we got married (K-bot was 20) and because we were already on the path of work now play later we were able to start a life without any debt. We did spend like crazy and ended up only saving $3,000 that first year, things were new it was hard to control being the adult in a house for the first time. I could buy whatever I wanted without Mamaz saying NO. But keeping track of income and spending was the first step. We seen our errors and did better the next year, and by this year we have it perfected where we end up saving 50% of our income every month. I have more than enough money to have a fabulous life of spending and brand names, but what is it worth? I am tired of getting flak for the way we save instead of spend, tired of hearing "you NEED juice and nice expensive things to have a good life". I need very few things, but I live a good fabulous life. We still have date nights, which now consist of a movie (alternate who picks each week, though we both like the same types of movie), a delissio pizza, 1 can of pop each, and if we are having a good month M&M Meats chicken wings. Who wouldn't find that satisfying? It isn't hard to make a budget work, and you can still have a life, just modify it to save the most money (a delissio on sale 2 for $5.50 instead of 1 take out pizza for $25, pretty simple).

So tell me how is your life so much better than mine???? How is Hollister going to help me better my life???? Did your Prada bag and matching scarf pay for your education???? Does that $150 dress do anything other than not cover your "special areas"???? Say what you will now but I do believe that in the end Joesph's brothers all came begging because they were fools with their own sustenance, just remember that as you sit there passing me over because I don't have the newest brand name thing.

Off We Go To Mamaz House

So I spent a little over a week at Mamaz house last week (I went down June 12 and came home June 22). Now what would I be doing there for so long one could ask, well I am a great amazing super terrific awesome daughter so I did what anyone would do, throw out all Mamaz stuff while she was away. That's right folks Mamaz and Dad were on a weekend vacation (like every weekend) at the trailer and JPotty and I went through all their stuff and tossed all the junk they don't need (or at least we figure they don't need). This resulted in 3 garbage bags of garbage, 4 FULL recycle bins, 1 trunk full of blankets and towels to the humane society, and 6 car loads to the salvation army. JPotty and I claimed this as our father's day gift as Dad hates messy and didn't seem to care that we did this while he was gone, Mamaz on the other hand wasn't as happy. Oh well what can she do it is all gone now.

So in cleaning we found Mamaz has kept EVERYTHING from our childhood, all our school work, clothes, and art work. Jess and I got in a good laugh that we better have girls as there are no outfits for boys in storage. However the best part was finding old art work and school work. I was an odd child even back then. Here is an example.....

So this is some school thing that I apparently handed in (as witnessed by the Good Job stamp). You will need to open this and actually look at the writing and pictures. It is a birthday list. I want a gun, I don't want a school, I don't want a ponytail, I don't want a knife, and I didn't want something else (no clue what that says). I think it is super that I handed that in, where were my parents during homework time? Did they not see any of this before I handed it in? Oh well it is ME for sure.

Something I didn't get to take a picture of is a letter to Santa that has been posted on our fridge at Mamaz for some time now. It was from JPotty way back when (or as I would say kick it back old school). It reads, "Dear Santa I want a baby sip and slurp. And please kill my sister Laura. Thank you Jessica B." Yes Santa was a hit man in our house, though a real crappy one as I am sitting here writing this. Childhood is awesome. I remember the best present Santa got me. I wrote a note saying I wanted Apollo 13 on VHS (I was going to be an astronaut so I would need that movie) and I got a note back with $20 saying buy your own movie. Hahahahaha what was he thinking? Maybe I shouldn't have left out that beer for him, he is a nasty drunk!

I wish things were as simple as they were in childhood. An example of this came to me as I read my school journal from '94. The entry said "My favorite book is Beauty and the Beast an Enchanted Christmas because I can read it", do you remember when things were simple. You liked things based on nothing more than you could do it yourself, or read it yourself? I miss the simplicity that was the 90's.

ME Out of Doors

Get it? Out of Doors as in the magazine? No? Maybe I am the only one that reads that on the can....well other than Dad.

So as the title implies I have been out of doors, like when I was a kid not too much recently. I have a great many memories of childhood spent fishing, hunting, and camping. This was jogged by one of the activity day girls last night talking about how a turkey was killed and used for meat (when did that become a problem????). Anyways childhood was awesome, the best, no one had better than me. I can remember fishing on the docks all day on vacation, Mamaz teaching us to hook a worm so we no longer interrupted her sunbathing, swims in the lake and at times bathing in it. For the first few years of my life I can remember spending 2 weeks summer vacation up north fishing, 1 week at Harry's Place on Baptiste Lake and the other week at Rice Lake. Fishing is fishing not much to say, caught lots of fish off the dock and ate pickerel every night at the fire. I didn't often fish from the boat as Dad and Uncle Dave would be out all day and that is too much for young children. But when I did get on the boat I would drive it! So cool!
The winter has always been a time of hunting in my family. Deer opens in the fall and Dad would always get at least 1 and would teach JPotty and I about anatomy as he gutted it and cut it up. I can even remember when he let us touch the guts, and quickly told us to wash our hands. I can remember raising rabbits in Grandma's back yard and killing them in months that had an r (if it doesn't have an r then the rabbits will have worms!). Dad would hold the rabbit and pet it then bam break its neck and skin it (a useful talent if there were ever an emergency and we went back to hunter gatherer). I can remember once Dad was killing some Pigeons (never my pet one, he died when he fell in the pool, more on that another time), anyways he ripped the pigeons head off and feed sprayed everywhere, it was totally awesome to a child, still is now and I am an adult. I can remember going to the Gun Club with my parents and shooting target practice. We really only ever shot targets, though once Dad let us shot a bull frog. When we would go to the old hunt camp near Bracebridge I can remember that we would shot our pop cans when we finished, JPotty and I had a slew of shot cans all over our rooms growing up (a type of trophy for us).

The Old Hunt Camp, you can tell the size of it by the fact the 4 adults are about the size of the entrance. Yes that is Kyle on the end, I had to break him in to see if he was a keeper, only 1 month of dating before I got down to brass tax and made him "One of us, one of us".Oh lets talk about that hunt camp, shame it had to be sold. It was 1 room. Yep you heard me 1 room. We would stay there as a family, aunts/uncles/cousins, and all stay in 1 room. It had 4 sets of bunk beds along the back walls and a small kitchen space with a table, wood stove, and gas stove. Yes that's another thing, no power and no water. I can remember that's when I learned to hold it in at night because no way you are walking through the woods in January in your pjs to the outhouse with a metal seat to pee (it was a guys camp which explains the metal toilet seat). During the day though the men would sit around the fire, the women would play cards inside, and us kids would be free to roam the woods.

Anyways that's ME Out of Doors. It was an amazing childhood, one that I hope I will be able to show my children. I want my kids to see the way I did, animals are food and you can see the process yourself. Yes I have eaten things that some would call gross, I have eaten pigeon and it was great you are missing out if you don't try it. Up next for me? Squirrel. Yes I said it and yes you did just squeal like a small girl pig but Dad has told me it is wonderful. Also a lesson the more fussier family members have learned while eating at our house, only eat the packaged meats that say what they are. If you eat the unmarked you could be getting ANYTHING (bear, moose, deer, fish, partridge, rabbit, sometimes an odd cut of beef).

Friends and the Resurrection of ME

When ever I think about friends one piece of advice comes to mind "Laura, if you want people to be your friends you have to be nice". Oh Mamaz you tried so hard to make me normal and socially accepted, and it never worked. She gave me that advice meaning well as I was MEAN to everyone, deserving or not. I have a good many memories of torturing people that did nothing to me really. The best of the best was when Mamaz cousin Sandy came and JPotty and I didn't like her so we chewed up a WHOLE BAG of red licorice and spit it in her suitcase before she left to go home. She did nothing to us, but given any amount of time to think I can come up with anything, add to that JPotty was in as well and NOTHING good could come of it. So I tried to be good, nice, polite, everything that I wasn't. It never worked, I never had friends. After 17 years of trying I met Kyle and started college. A place for a new start, and I was an adult I could choose how to act and I didn't care to act nice anymore. No I didn't torture anyone......that I know of at least! I became ME. You see I have multiple personalities ME is the best of them, she is a good time, wild, crazy, say anything girl. Then there is the forced into submission Laura, she sucks. What can I say she doesn't do anything fun, she is normal, something a Mamaz could be proud of. I don't like her so much. Me had a great time in college and I made SO many friends, being ME. Plain old wild, silly ME. After college it was time to get married. Kyle thought that every day would be a new adventure, a new surprise. However we never took into account that ME didn't want kids and would go on the pill to prevent that kind of silliness. I shall add at this point that ANY medicine alters my body to the point of changed personality. So what was I left with but 24/7 Laura. I haven't made any friends since moving to Kitchener, I feel left behind in a way since EVERYONE has kids and I don't (though Laura wants kids). I have been pretty depressed since moving out here away from family and everyone that I knew. Through some weird twist of fate I have found ME poking through Laura, wanting to get out and have fun (she has been trapped for like 3 years). However a personality that has in the past gotten me through the making friends process may not work again, it worked on non-members who could take a lot of my crass frank and at time random and pointless jabber, but I doubt that grown women with children who go to church and are righteous would appreciate such a person. What could letting ME out hurt though, I have no friends so welcome back ME. Hope your days with Arnold are joyous and your adventures hilarious. Arnold is a joke to KBot, I don't even know what the joke was I just started talking about Arnold and he was laughing.....I don't know what I said.

Decisions

So I am TERRIBLE at making decisions, like if I could get away with having someone else make all of my decisions I could live happily forever (marriage was a failed attempt to have someone else make decisions, stupid Kyle being wise to my ways....gah). I try my hardest to pray about EVERYTHING in hopes I will get some sort of revelation that will make my decision for me, but I think Heavenly Father knows I do that so I don't often get answers to my desperate attempts to get out of a decision (I don't think He cares much when I do the dishes, or even if I do the dishes). Mamaz bought me a magnet for my fridge just before I got married and it says "I used to be indecisive, but now I'm not sure" (Kyle got one that says I'm not a complete idiot....some parts are missing"). This is like the theme of my life. As out spoken as I can be when I am being ME (more about that in a later post should I be able to decide to write one) I can never ever make a decision. So you might be asking like what kind are we talking about here? Life altering, or everyday? BOTH. I can decide nothing. I almost didn't go to college because I couldn't decide. Marriage was easy, Kyle had to move away and it was either life with him or without him, and it was going to be with him so help me (plus my earlier scam that I mentioned). It used to be I would fear missing the fun or adventure I would have had with the other options but now it is just I can't decide. When I am forced I am usually happy with the outcome but I still hate making a choice. Right now I am trying to decide if I want an I-Touch, I have been going over and over this in my mind for months and still no decision, Kyle wants me to have one since it is so handy but I don't think I need one right now and I don't want to spend the money. Then I am thinking about a clarinet, I loved playing in high school (that is when I chose the song and when to practice) so I would love to get back to it. The thing is if I get one and get disappointed (which is very likely to happen) I will give up and it will be a waste. Plus in deciding I need to choose a classic one or a cool one from ebay that is purple (I mean if I am going to jam out with peeps I need to look cool so maybe the purple, but I don't want to look like a fool playing so maybe classic black), then there is the not wanting to spend money, is it really worth it? I mean God said to develop talents and it seems to be a thing that people learn an instrument (even Kyle has a sax). Then there comes the life altering one, to have a baby or no. That one will probably only get solved if it just suddenly happens that I find myself in that way one month. Then the next big one, a house or no? We have enough for a good down payment but then do I really want a house this young? I am too young to own a house. Then what if something happens that we can't afford it, or what if Kyle needs to move for work? I doubt that will happen but it could there is that small slice of pie.

Maybe this is all because I am not aggressive enough....... those who know ME will disagree, I am far too aggressive many will say.

Maybe no one reads this? Maybe I am too boring? Yeah that's probably it. Maybe I will post about ME or even as ME and then see who reads this by reactions! Yes that will have to be it.