The Money Crunch

Here we go again.

It's nothing unusual for most people. Particularly right now. I know I have friends all around me who are wondering where the money is going to come from to buy groceries or pay the next electric bill. Terence and I are once again in that position. It's nothing new with us, but right now I'm finding it particularly painful because I've had to zero out our savings to a degree that I haven't had to in over two years. There is no safety cushion now, and not enough money to buy our normal amount of groceries for the next two weeks.

*deep, heaving sigh*

I'm trying to be calm and exercise faith. Terence says in some ways this is a good position to be in because it means we have to turn to the Lord to see us through. After all, we've done everything we possibly can. We've paid our tithing and offerings, Terence has worked all the overtime jobs he could get, I've taken up teaching piano, and we have tried to avoid any unnecessary debt like the plague. (Arguably, we should have avoided the car loan, but still, buying a used minivan isn't exactly extravagant.)

Now what?

I've scoured the internet for cost cutting tips, but most of it really isn't helpful. Cut out my Starbucks to save $60/month? You're joking, right? Get rid of high-speed internet and cable? Never had those bills in the first place. Cut back my weekend bar nights to once a month? Seriously, these suggestions don't fit our family at all. Even the ones that tell you to accept hand-me-downs for your kids-- come now, there hasn't been a time since M was born that I haven't accepted everything and anything people were willing to give us.

Debt reduction plans don't help either. We have exactly three debt payments: our mortgage, the van, and Terence's school loan. There is no reasonable way we can pay any of those off sooner-- or at least soon enough to help us buy groceries.

So I turned to the Church's provident living website for advice. Of course, they tell me to pay tithing and get out of debt. But they also want us to create a budget and actually live off it. I've tried to budget before, and it never works. Mostly because what we spend is never actually less than what Terence's net pay will be. We always made up the difference with overtime checks, and I don't know ahead of time what amount those will be or when I will get them.

Still, I'm desperate, so I sat down this evening and tried to put together a budget using only Terence's net pay without any overtime (since none seems to be coming in right now anyway.) I cut out all the absolutely inessentials.

It left us with $119.65 for groceries for the month. For a family of six. Yeah. Guess we're going to be living on our food storage. At least we have some.