A GET AWAY

            It’s so sad that I just paid $10 for milk and tissues.  What is this world coming to when I have to pay that much for a little drink and something to wipe our poor runny noses?  That and the fact that I have a couple of close family members with heavy duty disabilities and their monthly food allotment by the state was cut down to $40 a month.  That doesn’t even include any paper products.  No toilet paper, no napkins, no soap and certainly no tissues.  This is all due to our economy drowning in dept.  So far, some solutions have been to tax foods, cut disability, and slash Medicare.  Oh and I’m sure our government gets a nice piece from spiking the cost of gas every possible holiday weekend or that could just be my gov. conspiracy paranoia talking.

            Our monthly mortgage bill would make the average person sick to their stomach.  We should be living in a mansion for what we pay.  It doesn’t help matters that our county is one of the most expensive places to live in besides NYC.  Upstate NY taxes are astronomical but at least you get a nice chunk of property. 

The county we live in is small close quarters, overpopulated towns and a squished melting pot of mostly blue collared workers just trying to get by.  I live more towards upstate NY, so my town is bigger and a lot less crowded than the heart of the county, but we still pay out the nose for a little two bedroom townhouse.  Unfortunately, we bought at the height of the market in 2004.  Now, seven years later and with two little boys, the market has crashed and we would wind up losing a boat load even if we amazingly sold our place.  Now we are stuck, like most people our age, and the real estate market broke my heart. 

            Besides the mortgage which gobbles up most of my poor hubby’s check, we have the car payment, credit cars (lets not go there!) cell phones, the gym, pre-school, Jay’s therapy, utilities and expensive weekends where it seems like we go no where, do nothing, buy nothing, eat light and still manage to drop $300 without blinking.

            My husband handles the bills because he is the organized one, never has made a late payment and enjoys keeping the books.  I, on the other hand, would lose bills in the laundry, would have our electricity cut off and would stress big time over missed calculations (caused by bad math).  However, I am the saver.  I would cut things out, eat bread for dinner and crunch those numbers hard to save every penny.  My husband likes to splurge.  He is never cheap…lucky for me.  Never stingy! But, has no problem spending money.  He has kept good track of the books, but boy! Are the books getting over loaded!  Here is the perfect example; we go to Aruba once a year.  I love it and crave the break from the kids.  Grandma and grandpa stay at our house and watch the grand kids while we relax in tropical luxury.  Now, if I were in charge of the money, I would probably say we couldn’t afford it.  Let’s save.  Which I have said in the past, but hubby insists, “We need it!”  When I’m drowning in a bad day he’ll whisper about the palm tree’s, he’ll smirk when reminiscing about the black jack tables, he’ll playfully tickle me when we think about cuddling in the crystal clear, aqua green ocean, and he’ll remind me how the weather is always perfect.  Of course, I agree, especially when the kids are screaming in the back ground.  He makes perfect sense and off we go.  But I know we should be saving. 

Poor guy! He works so hard.  All he wants is a little break.  Who wouldn’t want to get away?  This economy sucks!  Bye…I’m going to Aruba.