The practical and the impractical.

It is tax season. For most families this means prayers of a return and fear that you will owe the IRS. We have been fairly blessed to not have had an owing year since our marriage. (knock on wood!) This year was no exception however we approached things differently this year. We mad a vow before we even saw the amount that at least 50% was going into the retirement fund. With how things have gone we knew that this was the best thing we could do to plan for the future. Granted if Hubs has his way he will never retire BUT we still need to plan. A lot of couples our age tend to write off retirement. It is so far off and there will be time to save. WRONG. There is no time like right now. Saving is not only for your benefit but for the benefit of your family. We have a relative who has no savings at all and we have seen first hand how putting it off has harmed this person but also every one else in the family. So save save SAVE!!

Of course you also need to let yourself splurge some times as long as it does not negatively impact your financial health. We decided that each of us also deserved something fun after the money went into savings. Every year our returns have gone to pay bills and while we could have put this towards a bill as well we decided to splurge and buy a want rather than a need. Hubs gets his bear hunting trip to Canada. I got my computer that I have always wanted, and the girls got a 14" trampoline. It was wonderful to buy toys for once. I have a hard time spending money, especially on something decadent and unnecessary. Hubs had to push a little, haha, but I am glad he did. It felt good to fill a desire for each of us.

The moral here is that you need to find a balance with the practical and the impractical. You have to plan for your future first and foremost but once you do it is okay to treat yourself a little!

Tips from Clara

Here are Clara the depression cooks tip on how to survive hard times...

Want to help the economy? Don't work.

Now, I might be totally off on this thought, but it's something that has been swirling around my head for awhile. I have several friends who are out looking for jobs, but don't have much experience and are being beat out of minimum wage job by people who have been forced to seriously downgrade their skills. I have one friend who just lost a receptionist-type position to a women who had been a lawyer's clerk/personal secretary for more then a decade.

I'm starting to wonder how much the two-job lifestyle is hurting our country. And I don't mean in the 'traditional roles' versus 'modern roles' way. I'm not arguing about people spending time with their kids, or volunteering at charities or anything like that. I'm speaking strictly financially. People have access to lots of credit, and therefore purchase lots of stuff they can't afford. Then both parties are up to the hilt in debt, and the family cannot afford to NOT have both parents work. But now you add extra costs to the situation. You are now buying 2 lunches, filling 2 cars with gas, paying the daycare of the younger kids, and all sorts of other expenses. Both parents are busy and the amount of fast food and eating out skyrockets. Instead of helping your finances, you might actually be hurting them. In my job previous to this one, I figured out (as I was quitting) that between gas, food and daycare I was actually losing about $75 a month from working, and that doesn't even include all the pizza and take-out we ate because I was too tired to cook a real meal.

It makes me wonder how many families would actually benefit from one or the other parent quitting their job. Things like health insurance and such make it a bit more complicated, but the theory is the same. It's cheaper to cook from scratch, or even semi-homemade then to eat out. 1 tank of gas is obviously cheaper then two. No daycare/babysitter also saves a heap of cash. Not to mention, if a large chunk of the general public did this, there would be a HUGE letup of pressure on the job market.

I'd like to know what everyone else thinks on this. I know it's not realistic, but I'm wondering if anyone has had a similar experience to this, or thinks I'm just bat shit crazy.