At least for this little family it is. We knew going into this that it was going to be tight, especially since the last couple of years have been throwing us curve balls in the form of money. Since we got married and decided to start a family Blair has been laid off, changed careers twice and took a few pay cuts. I took a pay cut to come out to our little city and work near home, then another one when the market crashed and it meant either take a pay cut or loose my job. So I think since we sat down 3 years ago next month and decided to start our family we have seen a decrease on our household income of 30 -40 thousand! Yes you did hear that correctly... we are poor.
I have never had to struggle this bad with money before in my life. Choosing between food or shampoo, new jeans or just wear your old ripped ones. I guess this is a real eye opener for us as to how good we did have it, and how bitter we can become haha. It is very draining though, watching the ones you love leaving you in the dust as they take vacations (what are those?! ) grow in their careers and see pay increases and promotions. And poor Blair, gets so depressed all the time having to deal with other peoples money all day and not seeing any of our own *sigh* it'll be nice to get back to work, maybe I will be able to afford a hair cut again.
The real eye opener though is how bad others have it. We can still pay all our bills and we do own our own house we just have no money left over at the end of the day for anything above and beyond our bills. Others have no food or shelter. I am blessed to live in Canada.
Rant over :)
I know how you're feeling! Stephen and I have both been getting less hours at work, so things have been rough for us. We're cutting our cable for a while, and we switched from Shaw internet to Telus (it also helps that they were offering a free laptop to first time customers!), and we're going to look into cutting back on our cell phone plans. We don't necessarily have to do any of that, but we're hoping that by doing so, we can get back to going out once in a while and having more money than just for bills!
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