The lay off

At the beginning of May, my husband was laid off his job.  Although I knew his time of unemployment would be temporary, all of a sudden the future became one big unknown.  I hate that feeling!  My anxiety went into overdrive!

The first thing we did was put ourselves on a spending freeze.  No unnecessary spending.  We carefully went over our budget and reviewed each item to decide if we really wanted to spend our drastically reduced income on it.  Out went the gym membership (we rarely used it anyway!).  A phone call to our insurance agent lowered our monthly premium.  Turns out, we'd been overpaying for a couple of years due to children no longer on our policy.  A call to our internet provider got us a lower monthly price also.  And so it went.  Nothing was sacred.  Well, except for tithing...and one tenth of nothing isn't very much anyway!

We cut out eating at restaurants.  We stopped recreational shopping.  We were more careful with the groceries we bought...careful not to waste!  We worked on home projects that had been started and not finished.  We spent more time working in the garden and yard.  Our "movie nights" were in our living room, courtesy of Netflix and Redbox.  In short, we simplified our life.

Simple pleasures are the best!

A funny thing has happened since that day in May.  Even though my husband got a new (and better!) job in mid June, I still have no desire to spend money.  That spending freeze was just the thing I needed to put my spending in perspective.  Sometimes we need a crisis to wake us up and help us remember our priorities and goals.  Money is a wonderful resource and everyone needs it to live but often we get careless and use that resource unwisely.  I do not take it for granted any more.