Money

So I know that we're all probably having hard times right now with having enough money. I know that earlier this year when they started talking about food prices going up and such, I thought, "I don't feel like Chase and I have been affected by this yet." But now that Chase is only working part time, I really feel that we are just going down hill with our debt. And a lot of that is my fault. I am addicted to shopping. Some of you might read that and think, come on Jen, its not that big of a deal. But it actually really is. Its not just that I randomly pick up a few things here or there. Its hundreds of dollars. Its hard for me to write this, but for some reason I feel like I need to. I don't have the greatest credit (mild understatement...) because I can not handle having a credit card. My thought process is totally messed up when it comes to credit cards- for some reason I think its just free money. I've actually been really good since Chase and I got married, making good payments on our credit cards and such. But Christmas time is the hardest by far. My addiction doesn't just lie with buying stuff for me. Its just buying in general. So I buy Chase lots of expensive things. I get presents for people because I want to give them something.

People who do not have this problem don't really understand why its hard for people like me. They just think- ok, you don't have the money, don't buy it. But a lot of times it doesn't even really have to do with what I'm buying. I feel happy when I spend money, but its short lived once I see the bill. Its not real happiness. Real happiness comes from being debt free and being able to control your addictions. I hate that I feel anxious when I get paid and I don't go buy something. I can't focus on anything else, and I don't like that I am allowing my addiction to control me.

Another part of this is when there is something I need, or Chase, or Collin, I will just go and buy it. I have a hard time when I know there is something that needs to be done, and its not getting done.
Example- On Monday Chase went to the bike rack to ride his bike to work, and found that someone (probably Wymount because a lot of people saw them collecting bikes this week) had taken his bike. Now this creates a lot of problems for us because I have to drive him to school, which is usually right during Collin's nap time. So not only do I not get my time to clean or read or eat while Collin's sleeping, but I have to wake him up, which means I have a crabby baby for the rest of the day. Tuesday I told Chase we've got to figure something out. We need to go buy a new bike. But we don't have the money to do that right now (we would just go get it from Wymount but they have no records of the bikes they have, and they have hundreds of bikes. So Chase has already looked for around a half an hour, but will have to spend a lot more time looking). This is somewhat ligament to go and buy the bike to save my sanity, but I know that we could probably figure something out.

I think the reason I got back into this spending problem is because as I said- we don't have enough money anymore to meet all our bills. So we have to put some stuff on credit. And once I start, I have to train myself again to stop. Because of this I've decided to apply for a crossing guard position so that I can help make up the money we lost when Chase went back to part time. This way hopefully we'll be able to at least pay all our bills without putting anything on credit, and when Chase goes back to work full time in the summer we'll be able to pay off our credit cards.

Later today I'll post pictures of Collin's Halloween costume. He turned 5 months old yesterday. So cute.