I'm Off My Monetary Mo-Jo. Shit.

At what age do you start seriously talking to kids about money? I'm not talking about $15 monthly allowances, and "Well, you'll just have to save up for that Lord of the Rings Lego set," or even the generic, "We can't afford to play miniature golf and order pizza, I'm sorry. What about some homemade soup?" I'm thinking more along the lines of I have $106 in my checking account until the end of the month, and that's not paying my child care bill, or my daughter's school tuition this month. Not to mention gasoline and, you know, food.

I don't want my sensitive fourteen year old to worry and feel guilty for going to the school that she does. Her father and I picked that school because it was the best place for her. It was where we wanted her to go. (The fact that her father refuses to pay any portion of that tuition bill is frankly appalling and really shitty timing for me right now. Also something I'll never tell her.) (Equally annoying is that I don't qualify for any more than $60-$70/month tuition assistance because I make "too much money.")

I am not frivolous with money. I don't have much credit card debt ($2K). I do often splurge on organic produce, chocolate and olives, though -- totally unnecessary purchases -- and when my daughter comes home from school with tears streaming down her face due to homework overwhelm, I am known to cave and volunteer pad thai from Chao Pra Ya and Doctor Who on Netflix. (I haven't decided if that qualifies as an unnecessary purchase at this point. Therapy is therapy. However it works.)

When I was a kid, I knew that our family didn't have as much money as the next one. We always had everything we needed though: Hamburger Helper, Tuna Fish Casserole, hand-me-down clothes, and family dinners at the table. I watched my mom pay bills every month, peripherally, and knew that every month she very carefully chose which ones to pay, and which ones to only send a partial payment to -- knowing that with a partial payment they couldn't turn off services or repossess.

I don't remember my mom and dad ever discussing finances with us kids. And I don't recall ever worrying about food or a roof over our heads. And strangely, I don't remember ever feeling that my friends had it better than me. I just knew that was the way our family was. I didn't begrudge my friends their wardrobes, or big bedrooms. After all, I did get Keds, and huarachees, and Levis. I just got them six months later. When they weren't quite so cool. Nevertheless, I felt well-adjusted, socialized with my friends, and had money in my pocket for after-school chocolate bars. Life was good.

And when I got married at seventeen to my first love, I didn't mess around with a honeymoon or new living room furniture. I knew how it was. We shopped at garage sales, ate our share of Top Ramen, and borrowed family friends' futons, and worked full time.

So how about now? How much is too much information? Do my children understand monetary reality? Do they know we only have a hundred bucks to live on for the next two and a half weeks? (I'm sure they don't, nor do I know if that is the kind of information that 11 year olds and 14 year olds need to know.) Do they see the difference between their father's house and mine? (I'm sure they do.) And while it bothers me a little to see so much money spent on electronics for the kids -- especially when it seems through actions that new laptops and a PS3 are more important than education -- I am grateful that the children are seeing different lifestyles.

What I ultimately want is for them to be prepared for life after school -- when they have their own jobs and apartments. What I ultimately want is for them to understand that our choices around money have consequences. What I ultimately want is for them to know what to do when they only have a hundred bucks in the bank and a lot more month to go.

'Cuz I sure don't.

I might not sell my house for "just cool."

I have a shaman-in-training friend.
You've met him before, in this blog. My brotherfriend.
We talked the other night about how to re-access spirit through dream gates. Of how talk to soul again.

Despite this sounding a smidgeon like a fantasy novel,  I don't actually feel like writing fiction right now.

Don't get me wrong, I love fiction. I want to write fiction, and publish fiction. But first, right now, I am immersed in the world of memoir. Living memoir. Non-fiction. Living my life in a creatively non-fiction way.

I'm making roads, honoring my needs, letting go. 

I'm learning ever more about myself. 

I'm.slowing.down. 

I'm looking at my experiences with MORE maturity and LESS obsession.

And.

Also.

I am trying to reconnect with my intuition. 

When Rob died, that catapulted me into talking with him in the pages of my journal, of receiving visits from him in my dreams, of meeting my spirit guides and my soul family. Of trusting myself. Implicitly. 

But not anymore.

To any of that.

My brotherfriend and I talked also about trusting myself again.

Well.

It's not really dis-trust, like I'm afraid I'll steal my laptop from myself, but more like ... when I check in on some uber-important question for soul and self, I want to know that the answer I receive is coming from a place of wholeness. Not from fear or desire.

Or co-dependancy.

Getting back to that place may take some time.
And I'm horribly out of practice.

All I know to do is: dance until the dream gates open, write until I hear the clarity that doesn't come from me, and to dialogue with people that remind me to check inside. ALL THE TIME.

"Is this bringing me closer to my goals?"
"Is making this choice in line with my true calling?"
"Will I be proud of this decision?"
"Am I communicating in the most non-violent way possible here?"
"Will chocolate REALLY help today?"
"Is this me being authentic?"

You might wonder why I'm so interested in this checking in with my soul/true calling stuff right now -- I mean, other than the general reasons of personal growth and living a life authentically, and one you can be proud to say you are living.

The reason I need to know if I'm lying to myself, or more accurately, that the answers to my questions are VALID ones -- the real reasons, the right reasons -- is because

I want to know if I'm supposed to move to Costa Rica.

I co-own a piece of land there already. I wanted to do it before, that's why it was purchased to begin with. But the plot changed in my memoir. The cast of characters is different. And I don't know if it is in my character's emotional arc to transcend the challenges to make it work with the differences from the original version of the story.

My ex wants to sell the land. So if I want to keep that Costa Rica dream alive (albeit in ICU), I need to come up with some serious cash to buy his half out. And I need to do it quickly. So, the question now becomes, not just do I want to live in Costa Rica someday? or even, do I want a vacation oasis in Costa Rica? but now it's do I want all that bad enough to put in an immense amount of time, effort and honest sweat for the next six months plus to make that happen? (Clarification: it'll take me six months to buy out my ex's half of the property. I could still take years to move down there, and I've made peace with that.)

Here's where the talking to yourself becomes mandatory.

I need to know if it is my true calling to go there. Is this me being authentic? Or is it just cool?
Because if it is, that's totally fine.

But I might not sell my house for "just cool."

What's an In-Debt, Paycheck to Paycheck Mama To Do?

I've already exceeded my grocery budget and it's only the fifth of the month. Seriously, I don't think my grocery budget should count if it's a Costco month.

Grocery Scare

I'm already at the EEK! moment of curtailing our monthly expenses. The kids and Paul are distraught at losing cable, too.

I went grocery shopping Sunday or Monday and spent $90. I was feeling pretty smug about my weekly grocery bill. $600/mo? No problem.  But then yesterday I didn't know what to make for dinner and the family decided on turkey sandwiches and sweet potato fries. We stopped at the store on the way home from a doctor's appointment for Joey (Robert introduced himself as Joey for the first time in three years!). We bought a bunch of bananas, a bag of grapes, two nectarines, three yams, a box of tangerine fruit popsicles on sale for $2.50, a bag of cotton balls because I've been out for months, a pound of Diestel turkey ($10), a loaf of gluten-free bread ($5), and a bag of frozen sweet potato french fries also on sale. We spent $60.

$60 on dinner.

Ok, there was some fruit in there. Let's call that breakfast.

So $60 for dinner and breakfast for four people.

We could've eaten out for dinner AND breakfast for less than that.

Maybe eating out IS cheaper.

I don't know what to do about this. I don't know what to believe. And at $150 spent this week already (actually more because I went to Costco, too! and I don't know where the receipt for that is) ... I shouldn't be able to go shopping for another week AT LEAST but realistically two because of the Costco trip. And that feels impossible.

We have no meat in the house. No gluten-free bread. The fruit certainly won't last us two weeks. (Try four days.) Almost out of yogurt. No cheese (non-dairy or regular) because I forgot to buy any. I think we are low on gf pasta, maybe one more bag of it.

And we're traveling next week. I'm going to have to go shopping when I get to Massachusetts. I'll need to stock up Fernanda's (the kids' Portuguese gramma "Vavo") pantry with gluten-free, casein-free foods for Joey to eat while he stays with her. And when I'm at the conference I'll have to eat out for dinner at least three times, maybe four.

The eating out will have to come off my allowance, but the shopping for Joey will be more grocery money spent, so that for the rest of August I estimate we'll only have ... oh wait! Whew. This is still July. In August I'll get a whole new $600 to spend on food. August might actually be ok. The kids'll be gone for 18 days of it, so Paul and I can get away with eating lightly and cheaply. Rice and beans for us is just fine. We actually LIKE to eat that. And I can do a big shopping trip right before they get home.

Ok. I can do this.

And I'm sure the kids'll not be traumatized without cable. We have Netflix, You Tube and Saturday morning cartoons. Paul will not parish without his news. He can get it all online anyway. Even his favorite news shows, like the Rachel Maddow Show. But he will lose his boxing channels. And I'm sorry for him there.

Next up:  Should we cancel the land line? Should we cancel the internet? Both Paul and I can receive emails and send them from our phone (albeit MUCH slower), but Aubrey can't chat with her friends. And neither can Paul or I for that matter. And we totally use it. Almost every day. Plus those news shows he now has to get on the internet because we don't have cable? That'll be gone, too.

(And we've got three cars. One isn't used all that much. We can cancel the insurance on it and park it out at Paul's mom's house in the country to be used whenever one of our other cars goes belly up and we don't have the funds to resuscitate it. That'll save a few dollars.)