I think I know what I want to say now...

O.K. I think I know how I want to say what I want to say now. And, since this is my soapbox, I'm going to stand on it.

I'm extremely grateful for all of my blessings and I thank God every day for them, but there is something that I want to put out there.

The thing that bothers me is when people tell me how lucky I am to have a husband who takes care of me. Yes, I am very lucky that I met my husband at the age of 19 and that he will spend his evenings taking care of the cooking and the housework, along with whatever I need to be more comfortable. I have more to share on that, but I don't want to go off on a tangent. However, I the definition of "taking care of me" bothers me when it is used in a monetary sense.

When the economy started to turn, we sat down and realized that one or both of us could end up unemployed. So...we started saving and sacrificing to prepare for such a scenario. We rarely went out to eat, we took no vacations, kept the terrible-looking paid off car, gave up little purchases like Starbucks, and we considered every single, solitary purchase before we bought anything, and we put money away for over 2 years. Above and beyond that, we've never lived beyond our means. We live in an older home that we fixed up ourselves, we haven't used a credit card in a few years and we're always the last people I know to get the latest, fancy technology. So, when my health got to the point that I knew I would never be able to be ok without taking time off of work, we decided that this was the time to use those reserves. Over the next couple of months, we saved every single penny we could muster to further pad our reserves. This is not a case of luck. This is a case of two people who mutually decided to be fiscally responsible. Either of us would have probably done the same thing individually.


I'm really not an expert on the matter, but I want to share something from my experience with this. Being lucky in anything takes at least some amount of work. Most lottery winners have been investing in tickets for years and years before they won--you have to go through the effort of getting the numbers before yours can be called. So please, look behind the surface before assuming that someone is merely lucky. I know that I need to work more on doing the same.

Thanks :)
-S