Hello! Its been another busy week. I am still not great about adding new entries, but I'm going to continue to try to add occasionally!

The weather here in Japan has been quite chilly and really windy. Winters here feel very long, especially since the Pacific Northwest is very temperate without the major season shifts that I experience in Japan. I start to wonder if it will ever warm up here, but ask me again in August and I'll be longing for the days of cooler weather

We did see some lovely early cherry blossoms. Hanami is the act of viewing cherry blossoms and is quite popular.


So, I've been saving up for a vacation, but its not my vacation. We have some family from the US coming to stay with us for a few weeks. During that time they want to see several sites with us as their tour guides. Now don't get me wrong, I love having people visit us. And I don't mind taking people to see things. But all this sight seeing and such isn't free. In fact, it gets pretty pricey pretty quickly. Our guests want us to take them to places they know we have gone or restaurants we like which is great, but for three weeks gets expensive. I'm paying for my family of four for things we space out over a year into a three week period. I find myself feverishly saving to make sure we don't go in hock to show our guests around. I've made suggestions that perhaps they select some places they can visit by themselves since I still have school obligations for my kids during the week that places major time restrictions on me showing them everything, but I've been kind of rebuffed as they prefer we show them around.

I feel quit conflicted as I would like to save for a summer vacation for my family to go to someplace we haven't seen/experienced before, but I'll be tapped out paying for our family to take our guests around on their vacation. I do enjoy that we will have visitors, but dread the financial cost and reworking our own financial plans around someone else's vacation.

Unfortunately, this blog entry isn't any sort of epiphany on how to deal with this or even fully a finance issue, but more of an emotional unloading and asking for suggestions on how to best manage this without offending my guests or breaking my bank account! Phew - I do feel a bit better writing down my conflicting feelings! Thanks for being patient with me and my woes!

Hope you are having a great week!

With my honey on deployment, we have been able to stash a good chunk of change away into savings. But I've been doing it so intensely that I have actually had a moment or two where I find myself short before payday because I've hidden so much money away in an account that isn't very easy to get money out (by design of course).

It's not bad to save and its not bad to save for a rainy day, but I'm starting to wonder if I'm saving out of fear. Its like I'm scared of ever feeling out of control and having a bunch of money saved up lets me feel like I have some sense of control no matter what happens. But its getting to the point where it's almost a detriment because no matter how much I get saved, I could be doing more and I haven't really done enough. This isn't Dave Ramsey gazelle intensity, this is just nuts.

There - I said it. Now I can figure out how to balance things out for myself. Maybe I need a therapist more than a financial blog

Man - I suck at keeping this blog up.

Since I last blogged, my honey left on a deployment leaving me at home with the 2 kidlets. We are surviving, but I have given myself a challenge to pass the time. We have a ton of food in this house. I'm not gonna lie. We like to cook and we like to eat and we like to buy food we think we will get around to cooking and eating. The result? We have a ton of stuff in the cabinets and freezer. I want to try to use it all before my honey comes back so we can start fresh when he comes back (and hopefully eat healthier).

I still buy some groceries, but I'm trying to really keep it in check to force me to use the stuff in the house. I expect we will have a few thanksgiving feasts through the year. I've started inviting friends to come over for dinner, not just for company but to help us eat some of this food.

I read an article once that a lot of families could live several months easily just eating the stuff that was in their house.

It takes more work to plan things out and defrost things in time, but I am bound and determined to save some money doing this!

But the call for donuts was strong. Too strong. But they were delicious.

Tomorrow I am staying home with the kidlets becauase both daycare and school are closed. We have a children's museum membership we'll try to use and if the weather holds up we'll hit the local park.

Maybe I'll have a better chance for a NSD tomorrow.

I work at this big company that is pretty well known. They announced layoffs in this last week. They laid off 1400 in this last week with a plan to lay off 3600 in the next 18 months.

I didn't get cut this time around but people I know did. People I didn't think would be cut. Now I have to wonder if I'm next. I highly suspect that I may be on the chopping block in the next 6 months. I'm sure my friends think I'm just being paranoid, but always better safe than sorry. I was laid off once before with this company but was able to line something up, but the hiring landscape is so different, I don't know if I could squeak out of this one.

Based on this - I now officially revoke my previous goals. The goal now is to save save save in the emergency rainy day fund. I think it may get very stormy. I had a great goal to pay off my honey's student loan this year. That's off for now. The goal is to keep afloat and stash away money in case I get laid off.

Hopes and prayers go out to all who may be in a similar situation or who may have been laid off.

On a side note - I read Liz Weston's Easy Money. Good down to earth finance book! Reading Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover. Jury is still out on that book....