Stupid Money

For the last month or so, our household has been in the throes of the sort of monetary crisis that every lower middle-class family experiences from time to time. I guess it never goes so far that we don't have enough to put food on the table, but for a while we wonder how we're ever going to make all of the ends meet up. This time, they did. Finally.

It's by choice, of course. Our single income, as-debt-free-as-humanly-possible lifestyle doesn't lend itself to a great deal of financial wiggle room. We've had a few technical difficulties lately, in addition to the home improvement spree. Those unexpected troubles seem to periodically throw us into a tailspin.

I'm trying not to let it bother me as much as I once did. As I said, we always have roof overhead and food on plates. But there is part of me that wishes that we didn't have to have the occasional freakouts when an appliance decides to give up the ghost or one of the kiddoes needs to see the doctor. I'm enough of a realist to know that this will probably never happen, but a guy can dream, right?

Now that a bit of the strain has been taken off, I can stand back and wonder why I allow myself to get so worked up over it. I suppose that part of it was the death of the treadmill. For the last 4 years, that's been my stress relief. I either need to find a new way to burn off steam, or replace that thang.