Coffee Chat: Where did February Go?

I'll offer you only hot drinks today...The heat started kicking on again mid-afternoon as the temperature dropped.  Hot cocoa, coffee or tea?   There's a lovely pound cake on the counter that Samuel made.  Have some?  It's light and lovely and fat free, as a bonus.

                                                   Isn't it a beauty?  And it's his first!

No he didn't give us the whole thing.  He gave us a big quarter of it though.  He had such a backlog of eggs in the fridge that he made this 12 yolk Pound Cake and made an egg white omelet with the whites.  He also happily gave me two dozen eggs.  It seems the chickens have gone crazy laying of late.

He brought our piece down last night after supper...and then he did something he seldom does these days, he sat down and talked with us for over an hour.  It was lovely having a visit without anyone but him, just as I enjoy Bess when it's just she and I.    Love my grandchildren but they do distract me.  Sometimes it's just nice to sit down and talk with a grown child.

Mostly he was sharing his woes over parenting, finances and such.  He said "Y'all never talked to us about money..." Well we did and we didn't.  We couldn't divulge too much information without making our children aware of how poor we were and what a struggle it was to manage.   We felt we owed them a childhood free of financial worry.  Yes, we did say "Oh that's not in the budget but give us a few weeks..." or we said "No" if it was absolutely not something we could manage and we didn't apologize for it.  I recall Katie fussing one day saying she was sick of hearing about the budget, but I've heard her use those very words herself, so she learned something, lol.

But yes, we didn't talk about finances a lot, and  it was  my reluctance to let my children know too much about our financial life and hardships because I grew up in a household where money woes ran rampant.  There was always money for steak and shrimp, the newest car every two years and loads of clothes and shoes for the adults, and even for new furniture every year.  On the surface my family looked prosperous and well to do.   There was also the flip side.  We ate steak and shrimp but had to heat water for a bath on the stove.  We had nice clothes, but underwear was full of holes and sometimes, so were the soles of our shoes.  There was a new car but payments were often past due on everything from credit cards to house and we kids fielded the phone calls because adults in the house didn't want to answer.  Some room or other was newly furnished each year but the house was often put up for sale for unpaid property taxes.  We got awesome Christmas gifts but more often than not we heated only one room because the propane bill was past due.   It was a very insecure life and came with a lot of anxiety and worry for me at least, though I think my brothers, too, felt it as we tended to discuss what to do about school needs or how to manage telling a parent that we were really ill. 

In 7th grade I called Mama to pick me up because I was really sick and felt perfectly horrible.   She fussed and fussed taking me home, complaining about losing time at work and in the end went back to work, leaving me alone.   When she returned that evening I was out cold with a raging fever and what proved to be a case of double pneumonia which resulted in a long hospital stay...where I worried incessantly at the expense I was creating for my parents when I knew money was so scarce and Mama was missing more work...In fact, I was so worried that I had hard time getting recovered enough to go home.

Now mind you all, John and I weren't living that sort of life.   We paid our bills and the children never knew a day without electricity or heat nor did they wear holey underthings.  But neither did we have steak dinners or eat shrimp or go out to restaurants to eat.   Dates usually involved a $1 hamburger and shared fries if we went on dates at all.  Everything we did for recreation was free whether it was a date or as a family.  There was no new car, new furniture, etc. Food was basic stuff stretched a bit further with rice, potatoes, or pasta.  There were nights we barely had enough meat in a dish to flavor it but they never went hungry.

What brought all this to mind today was that one of the other things we discussed last night was being debt free.  Sam and Bess have figured out how they might manage to be free of all but their land debt in three years time.  John and I nodded in sympathy and shared how hopeless it appeared to us when we'd been given a substantial monetary gift and we'd paid it toward our credit card which was ONLY used for straight up emergencies and the money disappeared without lowering the monthly payment one whit.  I told Sam I felt the same as I did the day Katie and I were unloading rocks into the mud pits in the driveway one wet winter and she dropped a HUGE rock that we could only barely roll to the lip of the car trunk into a hole...and we've never seen it again!    I told Sam there were so many things we needed, sincerely needed that money might have bought, but we were determined to pay off our debt and we started where we were.  It didn't lower our payments but our debt load overall was reduced even if it didn't seem worthwhile at the time.

What we didn't share last night was how each time we passed up a coke or even a $1 hamburger, we physically took that money and slipped it into an envelope and posted it on the bulletin board.  Each payday, we noted how much we'd set aside and we paid that much extra on whichever debt we were currently trying to reduce.  Sometimes the money in that envelope was given to a church that we knew was struggling to pay off their debt.  We believe in sowing a seed towards your need and we needed badly to get out of debt.  Every little windfall went into that envelope regardless of how much we wanted to spend that money on something else.  It was hard denying ourselves over and over again but within three years we'd paid off the cars, the loans, the credit card and finally the house.  And here we are 14 years later .  We've had nothing but very temporary debt and never more than $10,000, at one time, except 2015 when my hospital and doctor bills totaled over $150,000 after insurance paid out.  Thankfully we met every bill that came our way and then miraculously some rather large bills were written off entirely once insurance had paid.  We made it through that season as well, and we are still debt free.

All of that said, too,  because money has been the focus of about 1/3 of our conversations of late.    For one thing, John got a text on his phone that paychecks were in on Monday.   Well, we knew we had no check and John commented "And it's the first time in 26 years I haven't had one."   He'd listened as I talked with Katie about how we were going to manage our groceries every two weeks.   He's been alarmed by my saying we were absolutely not going over budget each month for groceries.  "We could take money from savings..." he said.  "No, no we can't.  Look we have this much and I've allocated it like this..." and I showed him my plan.  "Come summer the electricity will be higher and these two areas are the first things we'll cut back in order to manage that.  And if it goes higher, we will cut back here and here.  Then come fall we'll just ease back up into savings again.  This seemed to satisfy him but until he actually gets that first retirement check and sees that bills are paid and we've still got cash on hand, he won't be free of the occasional worry.

And I've reminded John several times of where we once were, because remembering where we've been and what we've done to be debt free is reminding ourselves of where we are strong.  We know how to manage our money.  We know what it takes.  We can do this for the season that is upon us.

Well that all sounds more than a bit sober, doesn't it?  The month has been a sober one overall and that's in part due to the weather which has been heavy and grey and often pouring rain.  No complaints even now over how much rain we've had, not even in face of the fact that we must drive the long way around to get to Sam's which is just a half mile up the road.  However, the road is so broken down between us in one place that we have to drive out to the highway and go round the long ways, some five miles to get to their house and they to ours.   Sam had cut a pathway that we might walk or drive if we wanted a genuine shortcut but we would be foolish to walk or drive that way since the ground is so soggy.   However, we all look at the height of the river and creeks in our area and know that underground that aquifer that runs under us is just as full of water and who are we to complain about that?  After years of drought level water who are we to complain over plenty?!

But what has also happened these past two weeks is that the blooms have begun...The wild pear and pines, the daffodils, forsythia, tulip magnolia, maples and birches are all blooming away.  It looks like spring outdoors despite the heavy skies.  I looked across the field yesterday at all the white pear blooms, like so many low lying cumulus clouds on the ground silhouetted against the deep grey of the sky.   It was breathtaking.  I always think of those trees as wearing bridal gowns and in sunlight with the greening grass and leaves behind them they are so stunning but even against a mourning grey sky they are no less lovely.

A new season is rushing in upon us...and February is rushing away.  It's been all too brief, but it's brought us a new grandbaby, six birthdays and a new season of life for us...So while it might feel to me we've been cooped up indoors (and oh we have!) life has moved on as it always does.