Sometimes I feed the dogs cat food.

In keeping with my last post I want to write about the reality of the money situation as well.  Here’s a little nugget of honesty,  when it’s three days before payday and the checking account has $2.06 in it and the dogs run out of dog food, I feed them cat food.  I give the kids a mixture a half-juice and half-water and tell them it’s healthier that way.   At dinner when we sit down to eat and the napkins/paper towels are used up – we use baby bibs as our “wiping rags”.  We’re so green.

That’s what happens when you stop using credit cards to bridge the paycheck  gap.  None of it is hurting anyone but it sucks.  We live in a snotty high income area and I often wonder how all these other people are making it.   Are they surviving on credit or have they just managed their money so much better than we have?  I told you before our net worth is $112,000 and that is true.  (We have 401k savings, we have 529 college funds for the kids and we put $100,000 down on our house (got really lucky and sold our old house at the height of the housing boom) but we can only put $8 of gas in the car!?!)

How come I’m eating Oodles of Noodles like I’m living in a dorm the day before payday?

Crappy choices.  Spending more a month than we take in month and using credit cards for the difference.   Cutting up the credit cards was tough, they were such a crutch but it was necessary if we are going to ever get out the paycheck to paycheck cycle.  So yeah, sometimes the dogs will have to eat cat food.

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