Breath, just breath

I wouldn't be me if I didn't go through spells of freaking out over finances.  I've spent today rearranging my schedule because summer school (the fun kind) is going to happen afterall.  The school wasn't sure until today.  So, I quickly got the girls signed up.  It's great for a new kindergartner to go through a piece of how the real school year will be before it really happens.  But, this meant refiguring out where the kids will be on my days off and rescheduling their dentist visit.  Then, of course, the boys will need their sports physicals so Chase can play football in July and IF Cole makes the basketball team he'll be able to play (I SO hope he makes it this year). I think this helped encourage my little spas.

We made the decision for me to go part time because of my $250/month paycut with health insurance premiums and costs that went up in January (penalizing families with more than 1 child...up to 5 go figure).  If I didn't have daycare costs, our take home pay was virtually going to be the same after I took the cut, so it made sense.  Still does.  It's just so hard to stay within the new budget though.  Some months, like last month needing new tires and alignment on Brian's car hurts.  Some of it was my doing, I admit.  I wanted some things for our vacation...but $20 or $30 adds up SO quickly.  Luckily, I have vacation totally budgeted out, but the past couple of months I've had to take money out of savings to pay our bills and it's killing me!  I know that's what savings is for, but all I can think in my head is that it's cutting into whether we get to go to Korea or not.  It's too hard to get the money there in the first place and we're no longer actively able to do that for awhile.  I'm so afraid of losing the opportunity with all 7 of us.  You know, before we start having adults children that move out.  That's only a few years away before we have an (gulp!) adult child.  I know those outside our family and especially outside Korean adoption don't understand my 'need' to go to Korea as a family, but I truly feel extremely strong about this for us to encounter and experience together FOR our family.  Korea was and is a HUGE part of our family.  This place needs to be experienced by everyone in it to understand where 3 of us come from and the roots to some of their heart.

So, I flipped out and sat down with my calculator, calendar and checkbook and refigured things. Nothing will go as I always planned.  We won't pay the house off in 20 years...it will be 30.  We won't save much for retirement, we'll just do what we must.  But, it's time, after vacation, to buckle down again on the budget.  I guess I just needed that reality check again so I could buckle down.  Before my paycut this year if we had unexpecteds I left monthly $ in the budget for it, but the paycut took all of that away.  No saving and no extras!

You would think that after living in this house for 15 years now we'd be A LOT closer than 30 years away from paying it off, but it was used to have a couple of kiddos.  NEVER will regret that.  We know.  Just, sometimes, I'm disappointed in myself for not finding a way to pay it down like we should have.  You know 30 years total would have been nice.  We should only have 15 years left and we have 29.  I don't dwell on that though.  That's too sobering of a thought.  In the end, it's really difficult to live on our income with 7.  We'll do it.  We always do. In reality refinancing has been our family blessing!  I mean, in reality, what would we have done without the ability to refinance?  Which kid would we NOT have?  I wouldn't want to choose.  That's what brings me out of my funks always; MY KIDS.

Okay, I'm back!