Texas Wahine

Join Date 08/2004

+127

Wallet Money Assumptions

My boys have become very self-sufficient in the mornings. I remember struggling with belts and tucking in and accessories in our Cub Scout days. Now they wake up and put on their slacks and polos and take care of hygeine stuff. They come downstairs and grab their belts, shoes, and backpacks from the mud room and are neatly dressed and ready for breakfast.

This morning was typical. Dressed and ready to go without any mom interference.

As I was about to send them off, I remember that Orian needed lunch money. School lunches are ridiculously expensive now (although, still cheaper than loading a lunch box with the goodies the kids want), and my boys keep blowing through their lunch accounts.

I *had* 20 bucks. I laid it on the entertainment center, with the purpose of sending it to school with Orian. We are not cash people. We have direct deposit and we use our debit card for everything. We are cutting back quite a bit, so we just don't go to the store often and we don't use ATMs. 99% of the cash we have comes from things I've sold online. So cash is kind of precious in our house. It's rare and precious.

I looked in the place where I had left the cash. It was not there. I looked on the floor around the entertainment center in case it had been knocked off. Nope. Not there. I looked all over the entertainment center. Still no twenty.

In a panic, I called Adrian to find out if maybe he had stuck it in his wallet for work. No big deal, usually, since having a twenty on you is a pretty good idea. But THIS 20 dollars had already been designated. It was NOT a wallet twenty. It was a lunch money twenty. I was starting to get upset, thinking, "Didn't he know Orian needed lunch money? Where did he think I was going to get that money from?"

The phone rang and rang and rang. When he has a meeting or something important he turns his cell off. He is teaching a class today, so I was certain his phone was off. Of course, if he had taken the cash with him, there was nothing he could do about it. I guess I just wanted to let him know that he put me in a bind. You know, share my bad mood and stress with him so it could be a family experience.

He finally answered and politely and lovingly informed me that, no, he had not taken the $20, and in fact he had laid it on my laptop.

I looked over and sure enough, there was the $20, with a note propped up against it. "Orian needs lunch money", Adrian had scrawled on the small sheet of notepad.

He wanted to make sure I would see it (laptop! Ha!) and remember that I needed to send it with Orian.

D'oh. I'm such a jerk. But I love my husband. He's a sweetie.

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Great story of how easily nothing, or even something done that's really sweet, can instantly get you angry at someone you love and care about.

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Jythier: Yep. Nothing like getting worked over something completely benign.

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If I can't find something, my first assumption is always that I misplaced it. I'm usually right, too!

So I don't have to worry about blowing up over that...

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So cash is kind of precious in our house. It's rare and precious.

It'sss our preciousssses. We loves our precious, don'tsss we?

I couldn't resist.

~Zoo

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Haha, well, my first assumption is usually that the baby put it in the dishwasher or the fridge or other illogical place. LOL.

In our house, things get moved around and you have to ask four other people before you can pin down what happened to it. Haha.

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LOL, Zoo.

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Sadly only have 3 other people to ask, and one of them is 11 months. One of them is 2 1/2... He can find his shoes and socks sometimes. But mostly, I'm out of luck. Wife knows where a lot of stuff ends up, though.

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JillUser

Join Date 11/2003

+17

Haha, well, my first assumption is usually that the baby put it in the dishwasher or the fridge or other illogical place. LOL.

We have that problem too! We find a lot of stuff in shoes

We aren't cash people either. I'm so sick of all of the field trips lately! We are constantly getting notes to send in $2, $5 or $20 cash for something at school. I rarely have change.

Mornings, especially Monday mornings suck!

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Cash isn't something I keep around the house either....when little girl scouts come round or anyone else selling chocolate, I never have even $2 to buy something...heh.

I get mad when I can't reach my husband. I know its not logical, but he has TWO phones (his cell and office phone) and I can't understand why he's not able to be reached on one. Sometimes I even leave snotty little messages, um, like today. I was at the ER because this little cold I thought I was having turned into a massive sinus infection...and I thought my head was going to explode...

I called and called to see if he could get our son from school since the wait was FOUR hours in the ER and I was puking in the bathroom trash can so didn't feel like I should leave....then left a message about how ridiculous it is to have a cell phone if I can never reach him on it..... after two hours he called me back.

Sometimes its just one of those days.

Mondays do suck.

Hard core.

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Jythier:

Haha, women are "finders". Everyone else walks around the house aimlessly for a few seconds and then declares it's not ANYWHERE!! Ask mom, she finds it in under a minute. Yeah.

Jill:

We have that problem too! We find a lot of stuff in shoes

LOL. Sounds like a perfect place to keep important grown up items. Ha!

We aren't cash people either. I'm so sick of all of the field trips lately! We are constantly getting notes to send in $2, $5 or $20 cash for something at school. I rarely have change.

No kidding! In Hawaii the boys had FREQUENT field trips, and it was always for weird amounts like $3 or $6.50. I'm lucky to have cash, but $3? COME ON! haha.

The school here has a cool online feature for putting money into the kids' accounts. Unfortunately they only accept MC. Our debit isn't a MC. D'oh!

Tova:

Cash isn't something I keep around the house either....when little girl scouts come round or anyone else selling chocolate, I never have even $2 to buy something...heh.

Haha, I hear that. We don't have a mower yet and they apparently are pretty strict around here about the yards. A guy came by and offered to mow for $30. I asked if he would do it for $25 (just to be cheap, ha!) and turns out we had to scrounge for an extra dollar just to make it to $25. Good thing I asked that. LOL.

I'm sorry to hear about the bad sinus infection. You must be really, really sick to be throwing up. And sinuses are the WORST! I hope you got some good meds to get you feeling better soon.

Did you husband get to pick your son up from school?

I don't even know Adrian's office phone number. When I call him on his cell and I have to leave a message I usually leave smart ass messages, haha. It's a work phone so his message goes, "This is SSG *our last name*, NCOIC of *where he works*...blah, blah, blah.

So I say, "SSG *our last name*, this is Brandie *our last name*, NCOIC of the *our last name* house. I am calling you regarding *whatever*. Please respond to this message as soon as you receive it." HAHAHA.

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I'm sorry to hear about the bad sinus infection. You must be really, really sick to be throwing up. And sinuses are the WORST! I hope you got some good meds to get you feeling better soon.

The thing is I don't throw up very easy...I guess all that infection going down the back of my throat (gag) just made me ill...that and the ER was packed, I was hot, and didn't eat this morning. heh.

And since I just "love" other people's ER stories I will share....

I went to the bathroom to be sick...both stalls were being used and the smell.....well, I barfed right in the trash can...and it was one of those metal ones on the wall with the paper towel holder. I had to turn my head at an odd angle to even hit it (and probably caught all kinds of horrible germs)...heh..and it was mostly just water and gross drainage...but looking at it gave me dry heaves, which caused my head to really pound. The Dr diagnosed it with two separate names...and when I asked what they meant..he said, it was in my nasal passage, but also moved up into my head...hahah

He gave me antibiotics and Codeine. My head still hurts tho.

I don't know about your facility, but you can't get in to see a PCM here on Monday, its friggin impossible. So the ER is full.

Did you husband get to pick your son up from school?

No. Had to call a gal pal.

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My boys seem to go through their lunch money in record time. I know they are buying extras which drives me crazy. When I'm being cheap, I make them pack their lunches even if we don't have goodies. Usually they only want to pack the day after a particularly good grocery day. Those are the grocery days when I shop while hungry and buy too many goodies. A list, a list, I know I should shop from a list.

I do usually have cash though because I get paid for my daycare in cash. Not because I'm getting paid under the table, I claim it on my taxes. I have a hard time getting to the bank and I hate it when I have to deal with bounced checks so it's just easier for me. The cash goes super fast though but I think you hesitate more to spend the cold hard cash than checks or atm's etc.

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I am normally not a cash person, although the last time I went on a "cash only" kick, I managed to save $7000 in less than 6 months. (anything not spent my Friday was deposited into a "date jar" for when HW got back from his deployment.

Yet since I started my photography buisness I seem to have plenty of cash on hand. I just stick it somewhere and forget about it. I'm hoping that I can save a bunch of money if I can forget about it long enough to stop spending it!

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Thats awesome he sounds like such a sweetie...anyway to the comment you left on my blog i am repsting that blog thaT was there and is no longer I just want to fix it and some more in depth detials so i kind deleted it sand figured i would repost edited version later....

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Tova: Nice story. Barf. Haha.

I hope you get to feeling better quickly.

Loca:

I am not sure if my boys are buying the extra stuff or not. I guess I should ask, haha.

Every so often we will have something they really like for supper and I'll do left-overs for their lunch, but I usually don't have a lot of really lunch-packing-worthy stuff on hand. I feel really bad about packing a soda in their lunches! ha!

I am bad about grocery-shopping while hungry, but I do a menu and then make a list from that. Groceries are one area where I feel like I do pretty good.

We are spending about $330/month for a family of 5, which I know could be less, but that takes care of our meals and gives us things we like for snacks, so I am pretty happy with it.

I was spending over $500/month on groceries in Hawaii, so this is a big improvement, but it really doesn't make up for the $ we lost by moving here. ha.

LOL. I know you are a frugal momma. Remember the museum? I was blowing through the cash and you were carefully considering and NOT spending. Haha. I need to learn from you!

LW:

rue! And since Brandie and family are trying to reduce their spending, I'd highly suggest going back to cash transactions whenever feasible. When you have to hand over actual MONEY for your purchases you can witness the supply dwindling, it seems more real somehow, more concrete than simply numbers on a screen.

I do 99% of my bill paying online, but I have thought about doing the cash thing for miscellaneous purchases, although it is still a hassle to get cash, haha.

Start out the week with 'x' amount for each family member, according to their needs. When that's gone, tuff titty, wait for payday! It will teach the boys budgeting skills, too. If they can't handle a weekly allotment, give 'em $5 per day for lunch. They'll learn that if they're frugal and save a little of that each day, by the end of the week they can have a collossal pigout or whatever.

OMG. $5/day for both the boys would kill us. Haha. They do get $ each payday ($10 for Xavier and $7 for Orian) to spend on what they want and then we take care of the other stuff (school supplies, clothes, etc.). I have been making them pay for their own candy and extra snacks above and beyond the grocery stuff.

LH:

Wow, that is AMAZING!! I am incredibly bad with money. It's not that I don't know *how* to manage money...it's just that I rack disipwin. I am very impulsive and wants somehow turn into needs in my mind.

Our budget was not bad at all when we were in Hawaii, especially with the deployment, but with a new baby and then the extension, I spent money to pass the time and make myself feel better. Then with moving and buying a house and buying appliances, we ended up really putting ourself in a tight spot. So our money issues are really of our own doing.

We have improved considerably lately, and if we keep it up we should be on track and in a good financial situation within a couple of years (sad, I know!). If I could kick my own ass, I would. Heh.

I am so happy your photography business is taking off. You are very talented and savvy and tend to do well with any venture you undertake, but you particularly shine with photography.

SR24:

Thats awesome he sounds like such a sweetie.

Thanks, he is.

anyway to the comment you left on my blog i am repsting that blog thaT was there and is no longer I just want to fix it and some more in depth detials so i kind deleted it sand figured i would repost edited version later....

No worries. It's your own blog, and you can do with it as you like. I was just confused about the switch.

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