People say this like it’s so easy, but it’s not. Especially
in my profession. And especially if you value family time. And even more so
again when you work in town and also play chauffeur to two busy teenagers.
As a teacher, opportunities to earn extra money are very
hard to come by. I work a full time job and also spend extra hours at home
planning and preparing lessons. The few (in my district, 3) extra possible pay
days are spaced out throughout the year and I try to take advantage of them,
but sometimes I can’t. This year, I was unable to take advantage of the first
one because I was too far behind in preparing my classroom. (Being behind was
not all my fault, my janitor never put my room back together. I went to school
3 different days and was unable to work in my room.)
It's also difficult to make extra money when you enjoy
spending time with your family. I don’t want to give up time with my in order
to earn more money. I understand that getting out of debt takes sacrifice; but
as long as my kids want to spend time with The Husband and me, we want to be
there. They are only “ours” for so long and we want to be with them as much as
possible.
The last reason we can’t just “make more money” is I already
have a second job… as an unpaid chauffeur. Both The Kids are teenagers and they
live very busy lives. I am constantly dropping off and picking up at school,
football, and dance. That doesn’t take into account in social activities that
The Kids do (when they aren’t otherwise occupied with their extra-curricular
activities).
I’ve said this before, but I feel it’s worth repeating. We
got ourselves into this debt mess and it’s up to us to get ourselves out of it,
without asking our kids to sacrifice. We want them to be kids and to have
experiences that kids have, and they do. Having said that, they don’t get to do
everything they want or buy everything they want. We’ve told them we have debt.
We’ve told them if they want something badly enough, they can work to buy it themselves;
but me picking up a second job would limit my time with them and their
opportunities to do anything outside of school hours.
Just “making more money” isn’t as easy as it sounds. It’s
not that we aren’t committed to getting out of debt, because we are. But we are
also committed to spending time with The Kids and giving them the best life
that we can.
Life is a balancing act and we haven’t been very good at
balancing the scales, but we are trying. I’m setting small goals to help us dig
out of this very deep hole that we dug for ourselves. I just wish getting out
of debt was as easy as “making more money”.
Small Goal #1: Less than $18000 in credit card debt by
12/31/2018… I’m coming for you so look out!
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