Living And Growing From My Decisions

I had a lovely lesson yesterday that truly resonated with me. For the past few years, probably more,  I haven't been taking care of my money.  I have just been winging it, never keeping track, these past 3 weeks I've really buckled down and started following a budget. 

For close to 10 years I've walked into the grocery store, filled the cart without thinking but I've come to the point that I'm not able to do this any longer, besides I have wasted food which really upsets me that I bought like that and then thrown it away.  That's disgraceful when there are people starving.

So, I've had a weekly budget that I've been following and although food is expensive, I buy what I need and I buy pretty healthy food. Lots of vegetables and fruit. I thought I might have to do without but that's not the case, I'm just much more careful and less wasteful. That feels good, I'm on the right path.

I guess this all came from living on a very tight budget while raising my oldest daughter and feeling as if I was limited. Then when I started working two jobs, I felt like I had the right to shop willy nilly, I had worked hard for that.  That was me not respecting my money, I was thoughtless.

I don't have a huge salary but I certainly make a decent wage and I should be better off than I am, not always just getting by.  Well the lesson today was that even if I am blessed with abundance doesn't mean I should waste it, maybe I should even be more frugal.

Just because I make a good salary doesn't mean I should spend, spend, spend... for once in my life I should actually be able to save for something that I want.  The lesson I learned was simple...  just because I have doesn't mean I should spend.  It's like what we do for our children, when I had very little money, I made sure that my oldest daughter had big Christmases and I always made sure she had lots of money for clothes the first day of school.  This wasn't truly appreciated by her though... she would come back to me and say things like... Is this all there is?  or... I don't have enough money for what I want.

With Valentina, I decided to be different, I rarely spend a great deal of money on her and she is one of the most grateful and thankful little girls I have ever known.  She loves whatever I give her and she beams because I gave it to her.  She also has chores to get her allowance, she never questions this, she does the chores.

I didn't do this with my oldest because I was raised in a crazy household where we had no allowance and we had chores... which would have been fine if my ex step mother Ruth hadn't been so insane in that we had to be perfect or get slapped for not doing it perfect.  When I tell people how Ruth was, they often wonder how I lived with someone who was so insane.  As a child we have no choice.. I wonder what my father was thinking? 

So with my oldest I did a 180 degree turn and had her do nothing but give her everything, definitely not the way to go, she wasn't grateful, she didn't feel thankful, she felt like I didn't do enough.  That was my fault, I raised her that way, I allowed her to become that way, just so I wouldn't be like Ruth.  I was more like my oldest daughter's sister than I was her mother.  With Valentina, I am her mama... I make the decisions for her while she is young, I am open to listening to her but ultimately I make the final decision. 

I went down a long dark path after my oldest daughter grew up and when I met Andrey; it took me until almost a year ago to realize that I had chosen that path and now I have chosen another path, one where I am more in control of where I am headed (since we are never completely in control).  I cannot say it is easy but I can say that it makes me happier that I have made better decisions.

"Everything you want, also wants you" ~ Jack Canfield