Well the Fates have intervened and my SO (I only add the B when I’m feeling really pissed off) now has gainful employment.
Given our relative poverty this is quite gainful indeed. As a result we’ve decided to do a budget. You know, that old fashioned thing with numbers and incomes and the really long expenses list.
We could have done one earlier I suppose and I could have even done one in the more extreme poverty of the past but one doesn’t focus on counting pennies when one is suicidal. Besides my real income and expenses were nowhere near predictable enough to write down and there would have been unfillable gaps.
From my perspective a budget is really a tool. It doesn’t actually change your income or expenses it just alerts you. Let’s you know if you’re living beyond your means and which expenses are out of hand. That sort of thing. The hardest thing is to stick to a budget. Even being fairly rich doesn’t make that easy because everyone loves to spend money without concerning yourself about the howmuch and whatfors of it.
So we wrote one up, it’s interesting how much has changed from my old marriage to now through all that no money land and fundamental change. My style here is to segregate money physically in plastic pockets. There are other ways of course and ours will likely change soon.
Bills take a chunk of course though for a family it’s not as severe as I expected. The internet is in here with the usual gas and electricity, it being really a luxury. There’s no insurance in our budget. You’d be amazed how much it would all total to if we had it. It’s just beyond our means at this time, so we are at risk I suppose.
We have a little of our own money to do with as we please which I think is important for all people doing a budget and we’re saving some money now which is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time with the hope it may move us forward.
The budget also easily balances, we are used to living light so the burst of income makes it easy. We shall see how it goes now but it is comforting to me that something is in place to assist us in our needs.
