Humbled

I'm mortified about the situation and hate to admit it on here, but I feel like I have to write it.

In my last post, I talked a little bit about how "tight" we are financially this month. "Tight" is not quite the right word, but more socially acceptable than "broke." We usually do a good job of living within our means and being thrifty when thriftiness is needed, but since I haven't gotten a real paycheck since June, we're, plain and simply, out of money.

J and I have never had to budget. He remembers having to go without the luxuries as he grew up because his mom stayed home and they lived off his dad's teacher-salary. My mom also stayed home, but my parents worked hard to be able to "keep up with the Jones'". We both have always felt pressure to live well and have been able to do it. Now that I have a job that pays me randomly, we've done okay. We managed to save a lot of my earnings to hold us over the summer, until I worked again. We made it until halfway through Sept, but now we're struggling. We also didn't exactly live thriftily at times when maybe we should have. All of this leads us to struggling right now. This is really good for us though. If we truly want me to be able to stay home for a few years, we need to learn how to live.

So, we are taking this financial peace class at church in an effort to get ourselves back on track. We've always been making progress on the debts we had (student loans, cars, house, and a few stray credit cards) until lately. We've been unrealistic about how we need to live now that I'm not working. Truth be told, neither of us have wanted to admit that we can't live like that, so that is how we're here.

We've always able to make payments and make them on time, so we're not anywhere near what I know some people face - part of the reason I'm mortified about the events of this evening.

I'm now shopping on a cash-only basis. We set the budget, put money in envelopes and now I can only spend what is in those envelopes. This month, we're really trying to see how little we can spend. So far it's working really well.

Today I went to Costco and our local wearhouse-type grocery store. I knew going into the grocery store that I had limited funds. I prioritized and thought I was close. I had a few items I was going to have her ring in last because they were more of the splurge type items (soda, J's ice cream bars, etc - things we could live without) and I thought I was over. As she was ringing things in, I asked her the subtotal a few times. When I hit my limit, I told her to stop and asked if I could just go put those items back after I bagged my groceries. Fine, no problem - happens all the time. I go to bag my groceries and look up. She's sending down all those extra items. I went to stop her and the man behind my friend in line spoke up and said, "I've got it for you. I remember being there and am not anymore. I'd like to do this for you. Just do it for someone else some day." I guess he had overheard me talking about how I really wanted to make this budget work until I knew about the job and how strange it was to not have to juggle my girls while shopping. He talked to my friend for a little while and he insisted on paying for the rest of my groceries. He said he was lucky enough to be where he is in his life that he would probably have just spent the money on something silly, like gambling at the casino, but he'd instead like to do something good with the money.

Needless to say, I thanked him profusely with tears running down my face (part from being mortified and part from the realization that there are truly kind-hearted people in this world who look for small opportunities to help someone else out).

I feel horrible because we're not really hard up. I wouldn't have been able to get everything, but we're not in a dire situation. There are so many other people in this world who could have benefited more by his help....

If you've read this blog for very long, you know that I've been struggling with my relationship with God for a while. I have strong beliefs, but have a hard time with organized religious groups and how people "screw up" God's word. Hypocrisy, judgments, and discrimination have really turned me off of churches.

I feel like some amazing things have been happening through the last few years... especially right now. I have spent much time "talking" to God about my fears and how I'm feeling lost right now about what I'm supposed to be doing with my life. I don't have the opportunities to impact others' lives like I did with teaching, but raising these two girls to be good people is also important. This amazingly random act of kindness and generosity has stunned me.

More importantly, it has stunned J. (J is very skeptical of organized religion after bad experiences with churches and has no interest in being involved in my church. I was shocked when he agreed to go to the class with me.) I called him, and through my tears, shared the story of this man. His response, "This is a sign that giving needs to make it to the top of our financial priority list as soon as possible."

Floored! I love that this is affecting him. I love that this is changing him and his priorities.

I'm so interested to see how this class and these experiences continue to shape us.

So, my goal tomorrow is to take some of our barely used baby clothes to the pregnancy resource center in town. They are short on items for the boxes they give to low-income families of newborns. It's not much, but it's something helpful and after what that man did for me tonight, I feel like I need to do something to "thank him."