Saving Money, Losing My Mind

That's it - I can't even think straight anymore. 11 months into Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University (FPU), and I can't function without a budget. Spending money hurts now. That's brilliant for long-term financial goals, but lousy for short term sanity. Need proof? I had to count on my fingers to calculate those 11 months; it's a good thing my kids showed me what to do when you go over 10.

I love the concept of thinking through every purchase before buying anything, both from a financial and an environmental standpoint. Really, I do. Unfortunately, after training myself to do that, I'm too cheap to buy things that I don't really need. Especially things that are for me, as in, things that are not for my family, but ME. If I were a clotheshorse or serial shopper or something, that would be great, but I'm not. I'm pretty frugal by nature. So now the things I deny myself are things I couldn't justify spending household money on, so I bought myself. Put another way, "my" treats were really household needs.

Last month I bought several whole grains and beans in bulk - yea! Cheap, healthy, great all around. Unfortunately, they keep getting lost in the pantry because I refuse to pay for proper storage containers for them. I can't find them, so I don't use them. Eventually, one of them is bound to explode and rain millet all over our dry goods, costing me several hours of my life cleaning. Now the issue is clutter. A few weekends ago, the boys were gone, the fog lifted, and I devised a game plan for several of our most cluttered areas. One of the worst is the closet in our front hall. Between the weird weather this season and the kids outgrowing their shoes and coats all the time, the door barely shuts. Add to that my husband's tendency to hurl every pair of shoes he finds in there like he's Curt Schilling, and you can imagine how just getting ready to leave the house becomes a headache. Ah, but I had a plan! Over-the-door shoe rack! Sort through the shoes and coats and bags - get it all off the floor! Put an end to all the pitching! Yeah, um, well, it turns out that those shoe racks are $20 each, even at discount stores. I'd planned to get 3 of them, but there's no way I could justify $60 for stupid wire racks. So what if the closet's a mess, right?

Wrong. While I still can't justify all 3, I did commit to one, and to cleaning out that closet. Why? Because my sanity is worth it. The fighting and frustration every morning when we all go "bobbing for sneakers" in the closet has got to end. I'm not suggesting we all have professional home organizers come in seasonally so our homes look like Real Simple covers, but if taking a few bucks out of the long-term cash stash helps ensure I'll live to see the rewards, I'm sure Dave would approve.