Saturday, June 26, 2010

Zeroed or, in the path of "financial freedom"

I didn't want to write that last part of the title because for whatever reason I can't stand Suze Orman, though all she says is true and much needed to be "preached." It's just that K keeps on saying that about us and it's true too. Sigh1.

I forgot to tell you, however, that a week ago K sold the Mazda and we're officially the family with the two crappy Hondas who will need to rent a car for every trip until we buy a newer car. Sigh2.

Now that you know the bad part, on to the good part: we have now paid down both of our credit cards (around 10K each) and we're starting again from scratch. Literally "scratching" out over ten years' worth of savings from our lives -- that last house gobbled it all up in its greedy fix-me-up-or-else appetite. Sigh3.

That alone should cure me forever of my own "appetite" for a big house with a large lawn with mature trees and enough bedrooms to accommodate the whole family when they come to visit once every three years and playset and "play house" for the boys. And plenty of room for gardening. Sob.

I'm really sorry that I'm not being my happy normal self, but this whole cat-gone-missing thing and feeling pretty lonely in our new location plus a horrible head cold & allergy to the dust mites in the hundreds of clothes & linen we're putting away which left me with a lovely sinus infection are not helping much.

As usual, I have tons that I want and could be blogging about. Years worth of photos. World cup stuff (Brazil played horribly today, BTW), etc. but I'm doing "blog reading therapy" and reading and commenting on other blogs instead. Hopefully it'll help improve my style a bit, who knows.

And now that there's the possibility of moving again next year, I -- newly moved -- am already thinking of everything in terms of "first and simultaneously last" time. When it comes to moving, Fang (Leslie M-B's husband) describes all the feelings involved much better than I ever could in this post.

So, yeah, that financial freedom thing? K says we're on the right path to it now (we were doing good in the past, but got sidetracked by aforementioned house). We'll save to make a down payment and hopefully buy a cheap(er) house in a couple of years and pay it off ASAP.

Someday I'll have a garden again... and a cat. It was just that six years of gardening and nine years of cat ownership have left me a little spoiled, you know? yeah. That's why I'm not that excited about all this sudden "freedom" we have ('cause not having a pet does feel pretty liberating, only in a very sad way for me).

All right. Time to go to bed. Way past, actually, as usual.

1 comment:

Rene said...

Sorry. :(

I can sympathize with your loss of yard and cat. I'm craving some green space right about now, too.

But, as you said, at least you're out from under a lot of debt. Too many people can't say the same. I know that doesn't make the lack of savings feel any better, but money can be earned again--peace of mind is hard to find.