Learning to break a mindset

I really had a wake up call in 2009.

My mindset at the time was that I thought I had to match my husband's income. Due to the amount that we are paying out of pocket in med bills and insurance I felt that some of that was my responsibility to take care of as it seemed in the last five years most of the bills were coming from me.

Last fall after I graduated from my CNA class my plan was to work my full time day job and work part time as a CNA to keep my licence current by working 400 hours in a 2 year period. Working a full time job and a part time job would equal my husband's income and help to pay off bill sooner. Not that we were in that much of a financial breakdown.

However about mid October working this way was not feasible. There were circumstances that came up that required me to quit my full time job, the one that I was most secure at.

I didn't know the mental damage I was doing to myself in this belief. I am still working myself through this transition. I still have the fear of losing it all, something that won't happen as we are doing okay with my working my one job that varies from part to full time and my hubby's employment.

Christmas was the hardest for me. I shared with a friend my struggle as she knew I was used to working several jobs at one time and now just working one. I was shopping for presents and was done with that, had no problem shopping for my hubby or other family members. But when I started shopping for what I wanted to add to our Christmas weekend as Dani was coming home, I panicked. I didn't want spend anymore money.

Even when I was done and showed the shopping list to hubby it wasn't an issue to him, but to me it was.

The other end of the spectrum is that we have set ourselves up to not need much, even though things around us fall apart like our furniture or the house in actuality once those are replaced, we are fine. We are used to running things to the ground and replacing them later. We don't see the need to update unless there is a need. Our goal since we were married was to not have any expenses that if we had to take minimum wage jobs we could still afford to live on what we have. We have succeeded that goal for the most of 21 years.

Some days I think I have conquerored this mindset and then there are times when I still have to work my way through it. I've also had to change my thinking that something has to pay for itself in order to continue working the project such as my writing activities, gardens and such. Granted five tomatoes, six string beans, 20 pea pods and four serving of lettuce may have closely covered the cost of a strawberry pot, but not by much.