Crunching Numbers

The challenge is on. The moment I heard my daycare income was coming to a near halt three months earlier than anticipated, I felt like a squirrel who got caught off guard in the middle of summer. There he (the squirrel) was, merrily sitting back in the sun savoring the nuts he found, eating as he went along. Then POOF! The ice age hit and there he was, caught off guard with nothing stored for winter.

My bank account is akin to an empty storage bin. In fact, I borrowed a few too many "nuts" as I was busy living the past several summers of my life. So not only do I not have any nuts saved for winter, but I still owe Tom, Dick and Harry for all the nuts I borrowed to get me through the past several winters.

Yes, I have a good solid home to weather the seasons. There is plenty amassed within these four walls of ours (plus the four walls within the garage and playhouse as well), so even though my "nut gathering" habits have not been good ones, we won't be out in the cold or hungry. Not for a while anyway.

I started selling off the excess within a few weeks prior to finding out winter was coming early in my neck of the woods, budget wise. But when I found out the bulk of my income sources were going to be done by the end of the month, I stopped all spending immediately. Where do I go from here?

You can bet your bottom dollar that my desire to sell the excess within, is fuelled by need now. I still don't want to have to dip into these "rainy day funds" (in my deluded mind, I thought this could go towards a little holiday one day in the distant future).

My first thought is that I will need to dip into my pension after all. No matter what way I look at it, I need to pull from future income in order to pay today's bills. There is simply no other way. Those "nuts" that I was forced to save while I was part of the work force with benefits are proving to be vital to my well being at the moment. But in the idle chatter that never stops going on within the back of my mind are the words, "What can you do? What do you want to do now? What are you good at doing?" There must be a value to some of my talents, sparse as they may be. How can I make our house work for us?

Is it feasible to rent out the main floor? If each floor was ready to live independently on its own without sharing kitchen, bathroom and laundry facilities at this very moment, it would be a very viable plan. But spending money to make money right now doesn't sound like a wise idea.

What marketable skills do I have? My idea of wanting to be "the person Mom needs" - someone who could be available to take someone to a doctor's appointment, pick up groceries, drive them to the mall, tend to the house and yard and simply be a "Daughter for Hire" is something that keeps coming to mind when the house is quiet and I am still with my thoughts.

There has to be a way. There has to be. If I don't force it. If I simply let it come, the answer is within. At least I hope it is.

I'm pinning my future on an awful lot of hope and faith right now. I hope it is enough.