It's getting so every time I get paid, I don't want to spend any money. I'm saving an emergency fund, which means I'm trying to skimp on everything else. I still don't have a credit card, and I'm not even sure that I want one. My plumbing is screwed up, and last night, I forgot to check the toilet for the water level. I did too many dishes in the kitchen sink, and the toilet overflowed. I didn't realize this until I encountered the sticky, smelly brown goodness coating the floor a couple of hours later. I busted out the mop bucket, and poured a generous amount of Pine Sol (Sparkling Fresh!) and some bleach and got busy. It's a small bathroom, but the mop got disgusting rather quickly, so I had to dump the water into the bathtub, and reload it with fresh water, Pine Sol (Sparkling Fresh!) and bleach.
It's not like I'm completely broke. It's almost like a game--how long can I stand to wash my dishes in the tub (I've already broken one glass) and deal with a toilet from hell before I say "fuck it all, I'm sick of this shit!" (literally) and call someone to clean out the sewer line. It's bad enough I have to run a hose from the washing machine out the back door, but dish washing in the tub? Oh, if my one neighbor only knew, she'd had a coronary. She asked me the other day if I was "planning to clean my yard this year." Leaves on my lawn is the least of my worries right now.
Hetty Green was a miser, but she was a RICH miser. I will probably never attain her level of wealth, but no doubt she would approve of me putting off cleaning my sewer line, and putting off going to the dentist, getting a mammogram and gluing my glasses frames over and over again, just to keep from spending money. I think she took it to extremes, however. If I could just save about $5,000, I could breathe a little bit easier at night. But I get so far, and something happens, and the emergency fund goes poof! It sucks. So that's what recovering from bankruptcy does to you. You become guilt-ridden at the slightest expenditure. I don't really WANT to buy food, but I must eat. I haven't quite lowered myself to living off food banks and giving up the grocery store. I would feel guilty if I did that, because I AM working. And there are people who need the food banks worse than I do. It's just that I've become rather cheap. When you are broke AND you don't have credit cards, you hope, pray and wish that NOTHING happens, so you can build even a tiny emergency fund, so you don't have to depend on your ex-boyfriend to pay for your car repair bill. (And yes, I still owe him $688 bucks.)
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