I set out for Walmart tonight at 8 o'clock, with a list of three things I needed: a pooper scooper for the catbox, a new razor, and bottled water. Two hours and $172.38 later, I'm sitting here with the handful of groceries put away and the credit card smoking in my wallet. How does this seem to happen, EVERY time I hit the door of that place? It's a puzzle I've been working out for years, and I'm no closer now than I ever was. I just know there's a Walmart-sized hemorrhage in my budget.
Unfortunately, this isn't the only drain on my finances, or yours either, I know. Only three weeks ago, I was almost giddy enough to dance a jig when I filled up the tank of my CRV with $2.77 gas. I wasn't sure I'd ever see it that low again, and paying less than $40 a tank was quite a pleasure. Immediately afterward, as you know, it began its meteoric arc up to yesterday's price, $3.39, by ten, twelve, fifteen cents a shot. No hurricane, no crisis, no summer travel---it just is what it is; the companies do it because they can, I guess. When I moved to Broken Arrow from Tahlequah, extending my commute to Locust by ten miles, gas was less than $2 a gallon. Now, driving almost 500 miles a week when I add in my miles to the gym and to church, I spend more than 10% of my paycheck just on fuel. Add in the car payment, and it's nearly 25% of my monthly income.
Owning my home is a blessing, and I have plenty of equity in it, but still, with another 25% going to mortgage/insurance/tax, I'm down by half. Add credit card, phone, internet, cable, water, electricity, gas, trash, sewer, lawn mowing, and medical bills: pfft!! I'm done.
Now I come from good, hard-working farm stock, and we can poor-mouth and talk hard times for days on end, literally. This isn't talk; it's very real. I know in reality I would never need to worry about going without things I have to have---I have family members who can and would help me out. But that's not the point for me these days. It's more about the honor of being self-sustaining, requiring and demanding nothing from anyone. I was taught to work and live on what I make, and I'm so proud of that ethic. But there's not much to do when the cost of living keeps climbing, and my paycheck from the state's coffers doesn't. I don't hold that against my school at all (even though I don't know one single soul who can explain the formula by which they compute it), but I do think there's a broken system in place when the people who are responsible for training the minds of the future get so little respect to feed our spirits, and even less to feed our families.
I decided some time back that all of this added up to Greek austerity time for me. I gave up getting my nails done last May, even though I had wonderful nail salon owner who did mine for only $15. I don't get massages until I am so tense I'm about to break. I only buy books at Gardiner's Used Bookstore, and I don't do that very often because I don't have time to read. I hate shopping in general, so that's not a problem much. I never go to Sonic anymore because I quit drinking even diet pop in September. When school lunch prices went up more than $1 this year, I decided I would bring my lunch every day, and I have, with the exception of Thanksgiving and one bean day. I can't think of the last time I went to a movie---it's probably been close to six months, maybe more. I go out with friends for dinner once or twice a month; my last bill from the Boulder Grill downtown was $4.14 for half-price appetizer chicken nachos. I don't know how to get much more "austere" than that without living on Ramen noodles, which my doctors might have a few little fits over.
But there's still room to cut, and it's time. Refinancing my house and car at lower rates isn't out of the question. I can probably cut some on my phone/cable/internet bills by scaling back services....as long as I don't have to miss Downton Abbey, Walking Dead, Mad Men, TrueBlood, and my DVR. That's not much to ask, considering that I don't go out often. I have God knows how many books that I can trade in at the used bookstore for new-to-me books. I even have some furniture I'm not using that I could sell.
Knowing that my generation will never be as successful as our parents' generation is not a bitter pill to swallow, but a scary one to me. I'm not afraid to live by myself, to take care of my world and my business on my own, or even to go out to dinner alone, but facing this kind of grim reality is best done in numbers. Would that they were the digits of a financial boon instead of a countdown to the bottom, before we begin the long climb back up.
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