Budgeting for Pickles

I remember the day clearly.

I had purchased a beautiful pork roast (on sale), and I had just finished browning it (and filling the entire house with smoke. oops). I set it in the crock pot, along with various seasonings and dreamed of the pulled pork sandwiches I would be serving that afternoon.

I glanced around the kitchen....barbecue sauce was ready, along with buns and chips, and in the fridge I knew there was cheese and salads.

What was I missing?

You guessed it.

 PICKLES!

How could I serve pulled pork without pickles? I couldn't! Without thinking, I went to the store and bought some.

It wasn't until later that day, when the pickle-topped pork sandwiches were consumed, that I realized it had been over six years since I had purchased a jar of pickles.

Seriously.

You see, it was six years ago when a succession of bad decisions had left me with $40,000 in consumer debt and a $17,000 annual income and a budget that didn't cover necessities, let alone extras.

It was five years ago when I discovered that my largest credit card, carried since my high school days, was legally a "joint card" with my parents, and needed to be paid off (by said parents) before I could declare bankruptcy.

And it was several long years after that before I sent the final payment to mom and dad and could truly declare myself debt-free.

In those years, I learned to BUDGET. I learned to LIVE WITHIN MY MEANS.

Like so many people are today, I learned about David Ramsey and Suze Orman and the envelope system and snowballing debt and I visited message boards about being broke and I gave others advice about slashing budgets.

I had no cable TV or Internet in my home. I became good friends with the town librarian. I challenged myself to "not spend a single penny for the next two weeks" and I "forgot" to send gifts at the holidays.

I'm pretty darn good at living like a broke person.

But on that day, with pickle-topped pulled pork filling my belly, I realized I wanted MORE then to be a broke person.

It was time I became unbroke.

I wanted room in my budget for pickles and purchasing clothes and homegoods that were actually "new" and not just "new to me."

Well, after a month thinking that way.... I realized I had a credit card balance I couldn't pay off immediately, for the first time in four years.

And I knew I needed a middle ground.  Somewhere between buying nothing and buying whatever I thought I "deserved for all my years of sacrifice."

If you're a Dave Ramsey baby-stepper, you could say this is a blog about what happens after baby-step 3...when you've got to get back to living.