photo credit: bradley j

Day after day, I dream of selling my house, buying some land in the woods, and living in a cabin, yurt, or tiny house. Yet day after day I continue the lather, rinse, repeat that is my life. Wake up, go to work, work, come home, clean, go to bed.  Often times I feel like my life is unfulfilled; rather, my job is unfulfilled, but it pays really well and I know what I am doing (for the most part).

Sometimes I feel like the biggest sell out.

I think that one of the best reasons to be frugal is to be able to live on less and have time to do things we love, yet personally I am not able to walk the walk as much as I talk the talk.  I work this job that is okay, not something I’m in love with, but I do it for the money and the benefits.

I’ve been thinking about going part time for awhile, and then I sit down and figure out how much money I could be making rather than staying at home doing whatever. If I did go part time, chances are I’d take about an $8 an hour pay cut, plus the hours that would be decreased, and then I’d probably feel like I gave up something I shouldn’t have.  I’ve decided to make the best of it currently, and do my best at work and keep paying off debt and saving money for the future.

That doesn’t mean that I still don’t dream of my cabin in the woods, or living in an rv and traveling full time.  It just means that I’m working towards being able to do that one day, hopefully sooner than later.

Do you ever feel like a sell out?  How do you combat living your dreams versus being realistic?

photo credit: Johnath

I was talking with someone the other day about trying to get pregnant, and they ended up telling me “You can’t afford kids.” After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I asked them why they thought that was the case.  They said that kids are so expensive, and they know how frugal I am and that if I have kids they will probably have me stressed out all the time about money.

To be honest, one of the reasons we’ve waited to have children is because of money.  We wanted to make sure that we had stable footing before adding a child into the mix.  I don’t think that’s silly, but maybe other people do.  At one point, we had over $36,000 in student loan debt, my husband was in culinary school, and I wasn’t even making that much in a year while supporting us! To get pregnant would have been a strain on our marriage, finances, and sanity.

I know that we’ll never be truly 100% ready to have kids, but I want to do the best I can with what we have now to prepare.  I want to get as much debt paid off that I can, save up enough money to take a year off work to stay with the baby, and have a healthy emergency fund just for peace of mind.  I don’t think that having a baby is a decision to take lightly, and everything I can do to prepare will make it so much more worth it in the end.

To be honest, I don’t know if anyone can ever afford to have kids.  I think that you make sacrifices and deal with the cards that you’re dealt.

Do you think we’ll be able to afford kids?