Money Money Money Money....MONEY

So......the economy is tanking, times are tough, our family is growing, and money is tight. So tight that we had a major budget pow-wow on Tuesday evening to help scrimp and save a bit more and climb out of this pit caused by lack of enough monies(opposite a money pit). Being excited by this new challenge, I have started out with a set amount with which to work out groceries, clothes, presents, fees, you name it. For 10 people. But my set amount is perhaps 1/3 of what I am use to. No kidding. This may get rough.

The first two days went well. Opportunities for spending were passed up, and it looked like perhaps we actually had a chance of following this new plan. However, this morning, it all changed: Alex really needed a trombone. And today was the day we drove down to Mankato to get it.

Alex will be playing this instrument in the High School Wind Ensemble (highest level HS band) and also in the select band for the award winning Show Choir. He would also like to play in the Mankato College Orchestra this fall. He needs an instrument that will produce a nice tone....no more student level instruments apply. An intermediate to professional range is where we now must look.

The intermediate trombones sounded nice.....much better than a student model. Then out came the professional model. Holy moley, it sounded beautiful! The notes sounded effortless and clear, with such a mellow, pleasant tone. It was mean of the saleperson to tempt us in such a way. We had obviously forgotten to include him in our Tuesday night discussion. Taking our options under consideration, I painfully decided to go with the intermediate trombone. Knowing music fairly well, it was a VERY hard choice for me to make. But, as we had discussed earlier in the week, we were going to have to make some tough decisions in order to make the new money budget work.

While Alex and I were playing around at the music store, Grandma ? was showing off the other grandchildren at her place of employment. They had tried to play at a nearby park, but the kids were just too hot in the sunshine to enjoy it. I guess when you are used to having 70 degree days all summer long, 81 degrees feels like deadly heat. I just hope my kids behaved themselves well enough to keep Grandma's reputation status at work on a positive level!

We drove like crazy people from Mankato to Glencoe in order to get to an appointment for Alex on time. His doctor prescribed the same headache meds for him that I use to help him combat these nasty headaches. Being barometer driven, there is not much we can do to hide from these things or to ward them off. Besides moving to another elevation, we have no way to avoid our migraines. This spring was a pretty calm one for us, but suddenly, as the storms of July have been brewing, we find ourselves in misery much as we normally do in the spring. Poor kid....hopefully these new meds will finally give him some relief.

Back to money......so we drive home, and unload the brand new trombone Alex had to have for school. A few hours later, Daddy comes home with another thing that Alex will need this fall in order to make it back and forth to college each day:

.....sigh. Even the best laid plans......oh well. I think we may need to do some rebudgetting again. Either that, or we can all look forward to our next meal sometime in 2013.