Okay, so we have money, no doubt about that. Even though the baby bills are piling up and we actually have a balance on a credit card, it’s not a big deal. The card is at 0% for almost another year, and it’s very low after that, so even if we carried the relatively small balance forward that long, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal.
We got a message from our bank 2 weeks ago saying that our bank cards would no longer work. Something about the numbers had been hacked. For us, it means this: No cash, and no purchases unless we used credit card or a check. An out of state check. Not likely. So yes, credit was used, and my husband did end up with a bit of cash, as his sister wanted a cell phone and he bought one on ebay for her, so we got the cash. Long story short, we did finally get our debit cards yesterday, but no pin number.
Enter today, when we wanted to go to Aldi’s, okay I WANTED to go to Aldi’s They have cheap veggies, canned food, and soft bread. Can’t beat it for some miscellaneous items as well, such as maple syrup. $1.39 for a bottle. And it tastes just like fake maple syrup should taste. I gather the real stuff tastes better, but I’ve never had it. I think you have to go to the east coast to get it. Anyway, at Aldi’s they won’t let you use a credit card, Debit, yes, but not credit. You have to have a pin number (see above, we don’t have a pin number yet). So we have a total of about $30 in cash to spend. For someone who really likes to ‘stock up’ — it’s very annoying. My husband took an ink pen (I didn’t think to bring a calculator), and wrote out the prices on his hand. I’m sure we looked pretty pathetic. And pretty poor. With our baby in her carseat, working figures. It was very humbling. Not that we haven’t eaten a lot of humble pie, and had only $30 to spend on groceries before, because we have. We’ve been there and done that. It’s been a long time, but we have done that. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling, remember the old days.
It made me very grateful that in a few days when our pin number comes in, we could buy a lot more than that if we wanted to. Right now, we got what we needed. Our baby got another car ride for the day, and we had time leftover for dinner, a baby bath, and some QT for the parents (you know, watching tv and catching up on e-mail, putting laundry away, drying diapers, washing the few dishes that won’t go in the dishwasher).
All in all, I felt both rich and poor today. Living on short cash in this economy is not such a bad thing. It just feels bad.
maybe someone called your mom and told her they saw you counting pennies… so she showed up with the yummies. ha ha ha