Being poor is SO overrated.

Okay, so Sis and I are taking this financial management course ya know. And they give us homework. So today was payday for Paul and I both. I told him that after the kids went to bed that we'd sit down and work out our cash flow plan together, see how it all goes, etc. HOLY NIGHT, we are in the hole $672 every month!!!

I mean, I KNEW we were broke, but to see it on paper....man.

I'm so frustrated, depressed, confused, angry...and DID I MENTION THAT WE'RE $672 IN THE HOLE EVERY MONTH???????????

I called my sister who is so on fire for this class and had her plan figured out weeks ago and man, she understands it and she's just better with numbers period. I called her at 9:30 and she was in bed, but swears she wasn't asleep. I was desperate or I'd have really intended on hanging up when I said, "Oh gosh, sorry! I'll let you go!" when I just really needed to talk. THANK GOD she was insistent upon my staying on the line. I told her that it just wasn't making sense - the whole zero budget stuff, the putting money in savings when you can't even pay the electric bill, figuring your "non-acceptable" pro-rata payments based on "excess cash" each month, but have I mentioned that $672 that we seem to NOT HAVE?? How can you figure out what your pro-rata payment to a non-acceptable creditor is WHEN ANYTHING TIMES ZERO IS NOTHING?

The relief in her voice was so very obvious when she said, "I'm sorry you're $672 in the hole, but my GOSH I'm glad this isn't making sense to you either!"

We're jumping around in the book and the workbook. Seems to me if the dude that wrote it actually put chapters 4,5,6,7,8 and 9 BEFORE chapter 10 that quite possibly he meant for us to read them IN. THAT. ORDER. Quite possibly. But no, last weeks' homework was Chapter's 1-3 and 10.

I'M SO CONFUSED.

Paul kept getting more and more frustrated because here I've convinced the man that this is going to work and we are going to eliminate our debt and we're going to pay CASH for that trip to Disney World in 2008, yet all of the sudden we're $672 in the red? My stomach got all tied up in knots, my eyes started watering, my head began pounding and all I could do was say, "Sorry honey. Really. I'm just sorry. Go watch some fishing or something and contemplate which set of dishes you want when you divorce my sorry incapable-of-making-a-wise-financial-decision-to-save-my-life butt."

He did go watch fishing. Whether he contemplated place-settings is unknown at this juncture. I hope he doesn't take the good ones. I'll need to sell them to pay off the mountain of debt, not to mention the regular ol' important necessities like oh, electric, water ... and the internet.