Monday, November 28, 2011

When Life Throws You a Curve Ball...


The tough get going. . . Hello again! It's been 3 months since my last post. Many thanks for keeping me on your blog list! As I mentioned in my last post, I have not been in the mood to post due to things beyond my control. You live your life trying to do the right thing, and BAM! Things get absolutely screwed up. What I can control however, are the things I do for myself that I enjoy. I missed reading all the lovely blogs out there, and reading your comments here. So I'm going to give this another go.

What I can tell you is that the last several months, frugality totally went out the window.  My husband decided that he wanted to join the country club to play golf.  He rarely spends money on himself, so I did not argue.  For the last 18 years, we have been focused on raising our sons, sending them to private schools, taking them to music lessons and sports leagues, with rarely a time out for ourselves. He said, "we are doing this for US, something nice that we deserve." What can I say to that?

So I went along.  We have been members for about 4 months now, and he decided that the membership is not what it was cracked out to be. He could not get tee time when he wanted, and then some of the courses were constantly closed due to tournaments. We were not getting our money's worth. He just told me the other day that he wanted to cancel the membership. A very expensive lesson, but better than continuing to waste money and getting no return on the investment. This was not the source of my stress, however, and it was actually quite fun while it lasted. But membership in a country club and acting all hoity toity is not me, so no great loss here.

Anyway, going to try to get back on topic and tighten the belt on our finances.  I feel renewed in my quest for frugal living. My husband has a good job, but he is nearing the end of his career. We need to pay off the last few bills we have so we have no worries in retirement. Our child rearing days are almost over (thank God!), and now it is time to focus on us. Our sons are rarely home, so we are finding that we are spending more time by ourselves. Here's to our "almost here" new future!

I have spent the last few days decorating the house for Christmas.  Most of the decorations were purchased years ago when our boys were smaller. These days, I've only been purchasing "new" decorations at thrift stores as I find them during the year. As I was unwrapping my latest find from this past summer, I made a serendipitous find. The Teddy bear sitting to Santa's left dressed as a jester was a perfect match to the Santa! I did not notice this until I set him down alongside. What a chance find! And he was only $3.00! (Not so the Santa, but he was purchased during my pre-frugal days!)

I'm looking forward to a great year! Thanks for visiting with me again!

2 comments:

  1. Welcome back :-) We all stray from the frugal highway from time to time. I nearly booked a holiday the other day til I came to my senses. I've got so much to pay out in 2012 but the draw of a sunshine break was pulling me in. I managed to resist temptation and to be honest I do feel better for it. Looking foward to hearing from you again soon x

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  2. Welcome back! Nice to hear from you again and good luck with getting back into being frugal again x

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