Comfortably bummed

It would be so nice just to have enough income to be comfortable. A little extra padding, you know? Not to have to decide whether dentist visits are more important than new glasses. Or whether paying the cleaning lady has priority over going to a restaurant. Not to have to decide whether paying next year's junior high school tuition has priority over a plane ticket to visit my family abroad.

Comfortable would be nice. However, it's not my reality. My reality is having to make those decisions all the time, and usually ending up with the less "fun" but more "economically sensible" options. Obviously, some of the major decisions we've made in the past, such as buying a nice house with a garden, or buying the minivan that was just a little bit roomier, have a direct impact on how much we have (or rather, don't have) to spend on the everyday things. It's the reality we've chosen, and I don't regret it.

And so, although constantly teetering on the edge of my overdraft limit, every now and then a light of hope appears, where all of a sudden a little bit extra jingle drops into our pockets to buy that piece of furniture we've been saving for, or to take that trip I've been promising my son. And just when I find a really great deal on airline tickets from TLV to LAX, the dark cloud of reality rolls over my sunny skies and reminds me that we're going to need that money for a rainy day. Sucks, huh? Yes it does. It sucks being economically sensible.

How will I ever seize the day like this? When will I be able to live for the moment, or buy things on a whim? When will we spontaneously reserve a weekend in a cabin up north instead of checking prices online for weeks and ultimately deciding they're too expensive? I'm starting to depress myself.

In all honesty, and lucky for my husband, I'm a pretty cheap date. I prefer camping in a tent than going to a fancy hotel. I prefer going out for ice cream than eating a 3-course meal in some hoity toity restaurant. But I'd like to feel like I could do those things if I wanted to. Comfortably.