Lots of "l"s in there for the alliteration lovers. 
When I was growing up in a dysfunctional money life (lived with mom and stepdad who were struggling financially and having wealthy father who never paid regular child support), one residual scar that I have a very difficult time accepting money or gifts. That is because there always some sort of string attached to it "If you get your mother to drop the court from pursuing back child support, I will pay your college tuition." That was one of the bigger things I dealt with at 17, but the list is long.
Fast forward to today. Our parents (my money-manipulating biological father excluded) know of our short and long term goals, and how we are adjusting to living on less, and that we are trying to bank a bulk of DH's salary while we have it.
I am needing to learn to just smile and say "thank you". Things that our parents have given us to help out with life (in just the past week):
1) New lawn mower (our last two were hand-me-downers from DH's fraternal organization members, and while we were on vacation and my inlaws were here to take care of the pets, FIL mowed the lawn, or tried to, declared the machine crap, and went out to Walmart to buy a decent new one).
2) Fully stocked paper products (toilet paper/paper towels/liquid hand soap) also from MIL
3) 32 new drinking glasses also from MIL
And from my parents yesterday:
1) 3#s bananas
2) 24 count Danimal smoothies
3) Dole orange cups
4) Trader Joes fig bars
I bit my tongue when I was going to say "oh, you shouldn't have." If there was a simple reset button in my brain, it would be oh-so-much easier. I need to realize that the manipulative motives of one person don't always translate to ungenerous motives in others, right?
ETA: Learning to make the money work smarter, not harder has included me starting a list of things that I know that we need on a regular basis (like Allegra liquid allergy and razors) - On Tues, I was able to stack coupons at Target to get $11.50 razors for $6.50, and yesterday I was able to get Allegra at CVS on sale for $9.99 and I stacked $4 in coupons to get it for $6. The Allegra is still on sale $13.99 regular down to $9.99. I'll go back to today for another one using a $2 off coupon. Smarter, not harder is one of my new mottos.
Learning to like living on less, and learning to say thank you
June 27th, 2013 at 01:21 pm
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