every time we say goodbye...

i die a little...

i put sam on a plane back to his country yesterday. i cried. he cried. it was a mess and i am lonely.

i will be back up on the blog as soon as possible, writing like crazy like i have been before. but right now, i just want to not think.

i am going to start tracking my "no spend days" here on the blog. i'm afraid some days there may be no long entry, but if it is a no spend day, you can be sure that i will post that on the blog. i'm hoping that i have many of them in the future.

and now, i shall retreat back into my cocoon of sadness for a day or two more. then i'll be up and running again.

shut up. or, rather, keep on talkin'.

today i called the customer service department for one of my credit cards to ask a couple of questions about my account. the customer service rep answered my questions. then, at the end of the call, he said:

"ma'am, i notice your amount of revolving debt currently stands at ______. i should advise you that on the bottom of your statement, there is a number for a consumer credit counseling service that will help you work out a payment plan so that you can have this debt paid off within five years. just call them and they will help you."

i thanked him and hung up the phone. what i wanted to say was:

"thank you very much for your advice, sir. i don't know if your job requires you to say that to me, or if you're just trying to give me a bit of friendly advice, but i assure you that i will have this debt paid off well before five years have passed. don't you worry."

this man irritated the you-know-what out of me. i realize that maybe he was just trying to be helpful, but to me, it felt like he was saying, "young lady, there is no way you're going to be able to get out of this mess without help."

well, i will. if there's one thing i know about myself, it's that the most surefire way to make sure i get something done is to tell me that i can't do it.

insurance. bleh.

so, a few days ago, i was having a conversation with one of my dearest friends, madeline. she and i have been close since high school, and now, with my latest move, we live in different states. this is difficult for us, because madeline is pregnant with her first child, and she is the first of my really close friends to have a baby. i wish we lived in the same place. but we don't, so alas, i have to content myself with communicating with her via text messages and phone calls, and seeing her every once in awhile. and i have already promised that i will be waiting in the hospital when she has the baby.

the conversation that madeline and i were having involved her health insurance or, rather, her lack thereof. her pregnancy had come as a surprise to her and her husband; they had always intended to have kids--but not until that elusive "someday." someday, when they had jobs that gave them health insurance.

see, madeline and her husband both work--and work hard. her husband works for a small company that isn't yet big enough to offer its employees insurance. madeline teaches courses for several community colleges in the area; she makes a decent yearly salary, but because she doesn't work full-time at any one school, she doesn't qualify for benefits. so now, with the baby coming, they are struggling. "we can pay for the doctor's visits out-of-pocket, but just barely," she told me. "now we're trying to save up for the hospital stay and the delivery and the epidural--because that's where it's really going to get expensive."

now, about six months ago, before madeline found out she was pregnant, madeline and i had a discussion about health insurance.

"why don't you buy health insurance on your own?" i asked her. "i pay $85 a month for a really basic plan. it's not much, and it's not even close to what i had at my job, but it's better than nothing."

madeline replied, "we can't afford it. if we bought health insurance, we wouldn't have enough money to pay our bills."

at the time, i felt bad for her, but grateful that i wasn't in her shoes. but a few days ago, as we discussed her pregnancy sans health insurance, i realized, i am in her shoes.

i can't afford health insurance, either.

if all of my bills are overdue but i am making sure i have $85 in my account for health insurance, i can't afford it.

after that conversation, i was beginning to realize that my monthly health insurance payment needed to be axed. but what clinched it was when i went to walgreens the next day to pick up a prescription. as the lady handed me my prescription, i asked her, "ma'am, could you please tell me how much my insurance saves me on this?"

"i sure can," she said. she punched a few keys on her keyboard and then said, "it saves you $1." she paused, then added, "so basically, it saves you nothing."

well, i wouldn't call a dollar nothing, especially in my current situation. but what that made clear to me is that my insurance doesn't do much for me. and i don't even use it when i need it...like about a month ago, when i injured my foot but refused to go to the doctor because i didn't have the money, even with my insurance. my foot still hurts; at this point, i'm pretty sure i broke or fractured a bone or two in it. i think a muscle injury or something would have healed by now. but i still can't go to the doctor.

so i cancelled the health insurance. and while i was at it, i called my car insurance company and slashed my car insurance to liability only, which saves me about $40 a month.

i really hope that in the near future, i will have a job or an assistantship that provides me with health insurance. until then, i am joining the ranks of the uninsured. it's scary. but it's what i have to do right now.

mysterious ways.

so i got some money in my account today. got caught up on bills. that feels good, but not as good as i thought it would, mainly because i still have so much debt to attack and it feels overwhelming. i'm not discouraged...i just felt really sad today.

but you know, i believe in god, and i believe in signs. and i feel like sometimes god is telling me, "everything is going to be fine. you have to go through trials to make you stronger, and i will never lay a greater burden on you than you can bear, nor will i let you lay a greater burden on yourself than you can bear. and i'm looking out for you. we're going to work together to make it through this, and it's all going to be okay."

his words, not mine.

i haven't yet talked about our dogs. sam and i have two sweetheart dogs. arthur is about 70 pounds, and henry is about 10 (although that's really a bit too much for his breed; he's a little fatty. he likes to eat. he gets that from me). they are best friends, although they do have spats like any other set of siblings. arthur thinks he is a lap dog, while henry thinks he is as big, fierce, and scary as a rottweiler.

anyway, to go back to the first topic, i got a big sign today. after i paid all my bills, i started making a list of things we need in the house. one of the things was dog food. i wondered to myself if we should buy the biggest bag available, which is the better value, but is, of course, more expensive. i could have spent less than half on a much smaller bag. on one hand, i knew that we should buy the biggest bag, but i didn't know if i was willing to lay out all that money just then.

sam and i headed out on our shopping trip while i was still mulling this over in my head. as we reached the bottom of the stairway, we saw a large, nearly full bag of our exact brand and exact variety of dog food sitting next to the door. there was a note taped to the bag that read, "if you have a dog, please take this food. my dog died, and i don't want it to go to waste."

well, my heart broke. i can't imagine what i would do if anything happened to arthur or henry, and i wished i knew which neighbor had left the food so i could visit them and express my condolences and thank them for being so kind as to leave out the food for someone else. sam hauled the bag up the stairs to our apartment. we were both incredibly relieved to not have to worry about dog food as an expenditure for awhile. i took out a notecard from my desk and inside i wrote, "we are so sorry about the loss of your dog. thank you so much for the food. our dogs love this food, and we are all very grateful. thanks again, your neighbor."

i left the card in the spot where we found the bag of dog food. when sam and i got back home, it was still there. i hope the neighbor who left the food finds the card soon, and i hope that he or she is doing okay.

god has a plan for each of us. i truly believe that.

getting ready.

paycheck still hasn't come in, but i'm getting ready for when it does.

i haven't done any major grocery shopping in awhile; first we moved, then we visited my parents' house, then...well, we had no money. but later this week, that will change. and when it does, i want to be ready to spend my grocery money in the most frugal way possible.

i am starting a price book, modeled after the one that amy dacyczyn lays out in the complete tightwad gazette. (i love love love this book...bought it off the bargain book rack at barnes & noble when i was in college.) i've always been intimidated by some of amy's more in-depth math...i'm terrible at math. but who cares? a price book is math i can handle, and i'm at the point where i'm ready to take that on.

i also downloaded a new app on my iphone for tracking my spending. it's called money smart, and not only does it let me balance my accounts, i can also use it to keep track of my bills and track exactly where my money goes. i can create my own categories to track my purchases. it's really useful, and i'm enjoying it.

in addition to money smart, i also downloaded an app called debt tracker. this app lets me keep track of every debt i have and set up a repayment plan based on dave ramsey's snowball method. i haven't been brave enough to lay out all of my debts in this one yet. but i will.

creditors are calling incessantly, because i am late in paying them. man, i can't wait to get caught up on all my bills and not be behind ever, ever again. and then i can't wait to be out of debt and never, ever be in it again. that's a long way off, but a girl can dream.

my hero.

well, sam paid the at&t bill. we are on the same plan, and his phone got disconnected, too. i am paying him back as soon as my paycheck comes in which, as it turns out, was the victim of a date mistake. so i should have my money by the beginning of next week.

so...still broke. still waiting for my paycheck. feeling sick with guilt that sam paid that bill, even though i am going to pay him back, because he is broke right now, too. but god love him, he is postponing leaving me for as long as he can and for that, i am pretty grateful.

refrigerator is pretty much empty, save for several bottles of assorted condiments, a couple sticks of blue bonnet, and a half-full jug of milk. we are going to make a trip to sam's club next week, as soon as my money comes in, so we can make a good grocery trip and split the bill. so while we don't have much to eat around here right now (half a box of frosted flakes, half a box of cream of wheat, a can of cheese ravioli, a couple of packs of chicken ramen), one thing we do have in abundance in this kitchen is rice. jasmine, basmati, medium grain, you name it: we love our rice. we also have a lot of spices; we are also big fans of spices. others might have a cupboard full of spices that languish unused for years (like my mom, for example), but we are not those folks. sam is actually a really talented cook; i spend hours poring over a recipe, hoping that it turns out okay, while he can just hop into the kitchen and whip up something brand new in a few minutes and it will be fabulous. being engaged to a man who is such a prodigy in the kitchen is intimidating and exhilarating at the same time.

anyway, i had anticipated being able to go to sam's club today, or at least to the grocery store, so we could get a little more food in the house. because of the paycheck mishap, that didn't happen. instead, i got creative with some basmati rice. i got two and a half cups of water boiling, and then i added a cup of rice, a couple tablespoons of margarine, about a teaspoon of salt, and about an equal amount of cumin. i let all that cook up, and then when i put it in bowls, i added a couple of tablespoons of worcestershire sauce (one of those assorted bottles of condiments in the refrigerator that i mentioned earlier) to each bowl and stirred it up.

this was pure improvisation, and i'm proud of myself, because it actually turned out pretty great. i'll remember this little dish for later.

"then the clouds opened up and god said, 'i hate you, alfalfa.'"

so...today at&t disconnected my service. temporarily, of course.

this is because i owe them a lot of money.

i was supposed to get a paycheck today. of course, it did not show up in my account this morning.

which begs the question--how am i supposed to call about my missing paycheck when my phone won't work?

oh, what a life.