over to Quicken, and got the monthly budgeting stuff set up so that it auto-fills as the month goes by. Trying to remember now to go in every few days and do the quickie auto-update, then watch all the categories fill in. This is the part that I like – one click does most of the work.
Going through something of a “rest stop and scenic lookout” on this trip, the last few weeks. We’ve been doing DR now for just over a year. The other day I caught myself thinking about how differently we’re living now rather than a year ago. I was out yesterday digging up old field fence so that I could re-use it somewhere else on the farm instead of buying it new. Hot, dirty, nasty work which drives my gloves into early retirement and has me reaching for the bandaid box all too often. But because I recycled that fence, I had money still in the farm fund for the week to go buy some new feeders as a result, so that evening feeding time is easier. I’ll take that tradeoff. Last year I would have just put all of it on a credit card, and never looked back. And dispaired that I would never ever be out of debt in my lifetime. Yea, I’ll take my living conditions now over that uncertainty a year ago. I might be reusing stuff that others would throw away, but each time I do it, it’s an investment in ME and my financial health.
Also starting to really “get it” that there will come a day when we’re out of debt. Wow. I don’t doubt the date, but I’m still wrapping my brain around what that will be like. That’ll be the first time in ……. let me do the math here ………25+ years? Sharon, you’ll be able to hear me from Atlanta, screaming my head off when that day finally arrives. It’ll come on the wind like some distant cattle call out of the days of the Wild West: “oEE!!!!!” Not this year, maybe the tail end of next year.
But it’ll happen.
Looking forward to the holidays and doing the same thing this year for gifts that we’ve done in the past – a homemade calendar of images from our farm and other western WA farms, for family so that they get some idea of what our day to day lives are like. That will work out to cost us something like $15/household, but you can’t buy ’em in stores. That gift giving feels to me like getting back to what the holiday is for – sharing with loved ones. And starting to look forward to next year and how we can do an even better job with finances.