As I listened with sadness and horror yesterday at yet another tale of a family we know torn apart by infidelity, drugs and lies I was reminded of the wise words of Biggy Smalls “the more money we come across the more problems we see”;
A man before his time, RIP Biggie.
Anyway, my point is this, you can be happy eating beans on toast if you are together as a family, It’s pretty hard to be happy eating beans on toast because your husband spent all the money on P and hookers.
I look back at the ten years Dave and I have been together and some of my fondest memories are of times when we were as poor as church mice. When I first moved to California from Florida I had no wheels and a sweet {but poorly paid} cash job earning $10 an hour. Luckily I was a smart girl and saw a cutie blue scooter at the local car lot for $300 and sweet talked them into letting me finance it! That’s right. I had payments on a $300 scooter. But I was mobile and as Dave didn’t have a car either we tandemed on the scooter all over So-Cal. It was awesome and it cost $2.15 to fill the tank. When we found out I was preggers with E we were flatting and we {still} owned nothing. we didn’t even have a cutlery set or any plates we could call our own. But we worked hard and saved hard for 9 months and by the time E arrived we were still living a block from the beach and had our first apartment furnished with everything a little family could need.
Dave has always maintained that if money is the only thing you have to argue about, then you are doing pretty good. I’m not down-playing the huge stress financial worries can inflict upon a couple, but if your family is all healthy, you can manage to keep the roof over your heads and flour in the pantry for a batch of scones you can find some inkling of happiness everyday. When we first moved back to NZ the cost of living was so high compared to what we were used to and our one measly wage was Dave’s apprentice rates, we had the grand total of $25 per week leftover after expenses – this was in the days when we were only paying $280 a week in rent!
Keep your family close and be grateful for what you have, just stay away from the P and hookers peeps!
Follow
