I used to live it. The American Dream. I had the house, the car, the job, the social life, the shopping addiction... need I say more? I made more dough then the average early twenty-something and more than most people I know. My spouse had his own company, drove a Benz and a Lexus on occasion, and we took regular trips to Atlantic City to blow money to kill boredom. Life was good. Oh how naive we were. We lived in a world of daydreams. "Money is nothing, you can always get more." A regular quote that my significant other used to preach whenever I questioned to purchase a highly priced ticket to Consumerville, USA. We had things we needed, bought things we didn't, and threw away things that we could have used. We were invincible, or so we thought. Then came the crash. Not the car crash, not the plane crash, but the life crash. A crash course in reality.
The economic crisis hit us like the black plague. "Bring out your dead!" Or in our case, bring on the debt! We were up to our eyeballs and over our heads in money troubles. We couldn't keep up with our way of living so we had to change our entire lives around. We still have the "artifacts" of a once well-off standard of living. We still have the furniture, but now they're are rips and tares from the dog chewing through them. We still have our pricey bedroom set from overseas, but now the boards under the bed are broken, drawers fell off and the mattress has rips and tares from the dog chewing through them. (Something tells me the dog may be the problem.) We still have our big flat screen television, but now we rent Netflix instead of paying for cable. Our neighbors let us use the internet, otherwise, we would be watching a black screen or old dvds all day. On the plus side, we can still pay the electric bill, gas bill, water bill and mortgage. For now anyways.
Oh how times have changed. I no longer work. Daycare was too pricey and no one wants to hire a pregnant chick so here I am. My hubby works at ToysRUs. A big change from owning his own company. That company is gone and so is the pay check. Now the debt collectors harass us like the mob and even started calling us and hanging up like little school girls. I'm not sure what to make of them. I'll just call them evil.
Life is definitely different. I went through what I call the "crash cycle". First I denied it, then I lost it, next I cried about it, now I deal with it. It seems to be working out, thus far. I am on nothing but a budget. I went through my shopping withdraw. Now I steer clear of shopping malls and boutiques. Walmart, the dollar store, Ross, and yard sales are my new best friends. Even friendly visits are few and far from in between. I had to tap in to my great grandmother's depression era way of thinking to get through the mess we have gotten ourselves in. Our the economy has gotten us in to. I'm not quite sure who is to blame. I'm still working on that.
